y 


THE   SMILING   HILL-TOP 

AND   OTHER    CALIFORNIA    SKETCHES 


THE  SMILING 
HILL-TOP 

AND  OTHER  CALIFORNIA  SKETCHES 

BY 

JULIA  M.  SLOANE 


ILLUSTRATED  BY 

CARLETON   M.  WINSLOW 


NEW  YORK 

CHARLES  SCRIBNER'S  SONS 

1919 


Copyright,  1919,  by 
Charles  Scribner's  Sons 

Published  October,  igzg 


3^ 


TO 

MY  THREE   COMPANIONS   OF  THE   ROAD 

ONE   LARGE   AND  TWO   SMALL 

THIS    LITTLE    BOOK 

IS   LOVINGLY  DEDICATED 


A   '  >  i.'->  C\  * 


CONTENTS 

Introduction 

PAGE 

I 

The  Smiling  Hill-Top 

5 

A  California  Poppy 

19 

Gardeners 

35 

Thorns 

55 

The  Gypsy  Trail 

n 

An  Adventure  in  Solitude 

94 

A  Sabine  Farm 

116 

The  Land  of  "Whynot" 

132 

Where  the  Trade  Wind  Blows 

155 

Sunkist 

176 

THE  SMILING  HILI^TOP 

AND  OTHER  CALIFORNIA  SKETCHES 

INTRODUCTION 

THE  following  sketches  are  entirely  in- 
formal. They  do  not  cover  the  sub- 
ject of  Southern  California  in  any  way. 
In  fact,  they  contain  no  information  what- 
ever, either  about  the  missions  or  history 
— a  little,  perhaps,  about  the  climate  and 
the  fruits  and  flowers  of  the  earth,  but  that 
has  crept  in  more  or  less  unavoidably. 
They  are  the  record  of  what  happened  to 
happen  to  a  fairly  light-hearted  family  who 
left  New  England  in  search  of  rest  and 
health.  There  are  six  of  us,  two  grown- 
ups, two  boys,  and  two  dogs.  We  came 
for  a  year  and,  like  many  another  family, 

%  [I] 


: :  :•  •.*.:  ;'-.T??E :  SRIILJNG  HILL-TOP 
•  •  ••«*«*    t*'*«*    *  ' 

have  taken  root  for  all  our  days — or  so  it 
seems  now. 

The  reactions  of  more  or  less  tempera- 
mental people,  suddenly  transplanted  from 
a  rigorous  climate  to  sunshine  and  the 
beauty  and  abundance  of  life  in  Southern 
California,  perhaps  give  a  too  highly  col- 
ored picture,  so  please  make  allowance  for 
the  bounce  of  the  ball.  I  mean  to  be  quite 
fair.  It  doesn't  rain  from  May  to  October, 
but  when  it  does,  it  can  rain  in  a  way  to 
make  Noah  feel  entirely  at  home.  Unfor- 
tunately, that  is  when  so  many  of  our  visi- 
tors come — in  February !  They  catch  bad 
colds,  the  roses  aren't  in  bloom,  and  alto- 
gether they  feel  that  they  have  been  basely 
deceived. 

We  rarely  have  thunder-storms,  or  at 
least  anything  you  could  dignify  by  that 
name,  but  we  do  have  horrid  little  shaky 

[2] 


INTRODUCTION 


earthquakes.  We  don't  have  mosquitoes 
in  hordes,  such  as  the  Jersey  coast  pro- 
vides, but  we  do  sometimes  come  home  and 
hear  what  sounds  like  a  cosy  tea-kettle  in 
the  courtyard,  whereupon  the  defender  of 
the  family  reaches  for  his  gun  and  there  is 
one  rattlesnake  less  to  dread. 

On  our  hill-top  there  are  quantities  of 
wild  creatures — quail,  rabbits,  doves,  and 
ground  squirrels  and,  unfortunately,  a 
number  of  social  outcasts.  Never  shall  I 
forget  an  epic  incident  in  our  history — the 
head  of  the  family  in  pajamas  at  dawn,  in 
mortal  combat  with  a  small  black-and- 
white  creature,  chasing  it  through  the 
cloisters  with  the  garden  hose.  Oh,  yes, 
there  is  plenty  of  adventure  still  left,  even 
though  we  don't  have  to  cross  the  prairies 
in  a  wagon. 

People  who  know  California  and  love  it, 

[3] 


THE  SMILING  HILL-TOP 

I  hope  may  enjoy  comparing  notes  with 
me.  People  who  have  never  been  here 
and  who  vaguely  think  of  it  as  a  happy 
hunting-ground  for  lame  ducks  and  black 
sheep,  I  should  like  to  tempt  across  the 
Rockies  that  they  might  see  how  much 
more  it  is  than  that.  It  may  be  a  lotus 
land  to  some,  to  many  it  truly  seems  the 
promised  land. 

"Shall  we  be  stepping  westward  ?" 


[4l 


No  one  should  attempt  to  live  on  top 
of  an  adobe  hill  one  mile  from  a 
small  town  which  has  been  brought  up  on 
the  Declaration  of  Independence,  without 
previously  taking  a  course  in  plain  and 
fancy  wheedling.  This  is  the  mature  judg- 
ment of  a  lady  who  has  tried  it.  Not  even 
in  California ! 

[51 


THE  SMILING  HILL-TOP 

When  we  first  took  possession  of  our  hill- 
top early  one  June,  nothing  was  farther 
from  my  thoughts.  "Suma  Paz,"  "Per- 
fect Peace,"  as  the  place  was  called,  came 
to  me  from  a  beloved  aunt  who  had  truly 
found  it  that.  With  it  came  a  cow,  a  mis- 
understood motor,  and  a  wardrobe  trunk. 
A  Finnish  lady  came  with  the  cow,  and  my 
brother-in-law's  chauffeur  graciously  con- 
sented to  come  with  the  motor.  The  trunk 
was  empty.  It  was  all  so  complete  that 
the  backbone  of  the  family,  suddenly 
summoned  on  business,  departed  for  the 
East,  feeling  that  he  had  left  us  comforta- 
bly estabHshed  for  the  month  of  his  ab- 
sence. The  motor  purred  along  the  nine 
miles  to  the  railroad  station  without  the 
least  indication  of  the  various  kinds  of  in- 
ternal complications  about  to  develop,  and 
he  boarded  the  train,  beautifully  composed 
[6] 


THE  SMILING  HILL-TOP 

in  mind,  while  we  returned  to  our  hill- 
top. 

It  is  a  most  enchanting  spot.  A  red- 
tiled  bungalow  is  built  about  a  courtyard 
with  cloisters  and  a  fountain,  while  vines 
and  flowers  fill  the  air  with  the  most  deli- 
cious perfume  of  heliotrope,  mignonette, 
and  jasmine.  Beyond  the  big  living-room 
extends  a  terrace  with  boxes  of  deep  and 
pale  pink  geraniums  against  a  blue  sea, 
that  might  be  the  Bay  of  Naples,  except 
that  Vesuvius  is  lacking.  It  is  so  lovely 
that  after  three  years  it  still  seems  like  a 
dream.  We  are  only  one  short  look  from 
the  Pacific  Ocean,  that  ocean  into  whose 
mists  the  sun  sets  in  flaming  purple  and 
gold,  or  the  more  soft  tones  of  shimmering 
gray  and  shell-pink.  We  sit  on  our  terrace 
feeling  as  if  we  were  in  a  proscenium  box 
on  the  edge  of  the  world,  and  watch  the 
[71 


THE  SMILING  HILL-TOP 

ever-varying  splendor.  At  night  there  is 
the  same  sense  of  infinity,  with  the  un- 
clouded stars  above,  and  only  the  twinkling 
lights  of  motors  threading  their  way  down 
the  zigzag  of  the  coast  road  as  it  descends 
the  cliffs  to  the  plain  below  us.  These 
lights  make  up  in  part  for  the  fewness  of 
the  harbor  lights  in  the  bay.  The  Pacific 
is  a  lonely  ocean.  There  are  so  few  harbors 
along  the  coast  where  small  boats  can  find 
shelter  that  yachts  and  pleasure  craft 
hardly  exist.  Occasionally  we  see  the 
smoke  of  a  steamer  on  its  way  to  or  from 
ports  of  Lower  California,  as  far  south  as 
the  point  where  the  curtain  drops  on  poor 
distracted  Mexico,  for  there  trade  ceases 
and  anarchy  begins.  There  is  a  strip  of 
land,  not  belonging  to  the  United  States, 
called  Lower  California,  controlled  by  a 
handsome  soldierly  creature,  Governor 
[8] 


THE  SMILING  HILL-TOP 

Cantu,  whose  personal  qualities  and  mo- 
tives seem  nicely  adapted  to  holding  that 
much,  at  least,  of  Mexico  in  equiHbrium. 
Only  last  summer  he  was  the  guest  of  our 
small  but  progressive  village  at  a  kind  of 
love  feast,  where  we  cemented  our  friend- 
ship with  whale  steaks  and  ginger  ale  dis- 
pensed on  the  beach,  to  the  accompani- 
ment of  martial  music,  while  flags  of 
both  countries  shared  the  breeze.  Though 
much  that  is  picturesque,  especially  in  the 
way  of  food — enciladas,  tamales  and  the 
like — strays  across  the  border,  bandits  do 
not,  and  we  enjoy  a  sense  of  security  that 
encourages  basking  in  the  sun.  Just  one 
huge  sheet  of  water,  broken  by  islands,  Hes 
between  us  and  the  cherry  blossoms  of 
Japan!  There  is  a  thrill  about  its  very 
emptiness,  and  yet  since  I  have  seen  the 
Golden  Gate  I  know  that  that  thrill  is 
l9] 


THE  SMILING  HILL-TOP 

nothing  to  the  sensation  of  seeing  a  sailing 
ship  with  her  canvas  spread,  bound  for  the 
far  East.  From  the  West  to  the  East  the 
spell  draws.  First  from  the  East  to  the 
West;  from  the  cold  and  storms  of  New 
England  to  our  land  of  sun  it  beckons,  and 
then  unless  we  hold  tight,  the  lure  of  the 
South  Seas  and  the  glamour  of  the  Far 
East  calls  us.  I  know  just  how  it  would 
be.  Perhaps  my  spirit  craves  adventuring 
the  more  for  the  years  my  body  has  had 
to  spend  in  a  chaise  longue  or  hammock, 
fighting  my  way  out  of  a  shadow.  Any- 
way, I  have  heard  the  call,  but  I  have  put 
cotton  in  my  ears  and  am  content  that  life 
allows  me  three  months  out  of  the  twelve 
of  magic  and  my  hill-top. 

There  is  a  town,  of  course — there  has  to 
be,  else  where  would  we  post  our  letters. 
It's  as  busy  as  a  beehive  with  its  clubs  and 

[10] 


THE  SMILING  HILI^TOP 

model  playgrounds,  its  New  Thought  and 
its  "Journal,"  but  I  don't  have  to  be  of  it. 
There  are  only  so  many  hours  in  the  day. 
I  go  around  "in  circles"  all  winder;  in  sum- 
mer I  wish  to  invite  my  sdul,  and  there 
isn't  time  for  both.  I  think  I  am  regarded 
by  the  people  in  the  village  as  a  mixture  of 
recluse  and  curmudgeon,  but  who  cares  if 
they  can  live  on  a  hill  ? 

One  flaw  there  was  in  the  picture,  and 
that  is  where  the  first  experiment  in  whee- 
dling came  in.  A  large  telegraph  pole  on 
our  property  line  bisected  the  horizon  like 
one  of  the  parallels  on  a  map.  It  seemed 
to  us  at  times  to  assume  the  proportions  of 
the  Washington  Monument.  I  firmly 
made  up  my  mind  to  have  it  down  if  I  did 
nothing  else  that  summer,  and  I  succeeded, 
though  I  began  in  July  and  it  was  not  till 
October  that  it  finally  fell  crushing  into  the 

[II] 


THE  SMILING  HILL-TOP 

sage  brush,  and  for  the  first  time  we  saw 
the  uninterrupted  curve  of  beach  melting 
into  the  pale  greenish  cliffs  beyond. 

The  property  on  which  the  pole  stood 
belonged  to  a  real-estate  man.  He  was 
pleasant  and  full  of  rosy  dreams  of  a  sub- 
urban villa  resort,  the  gem  of  the  Pacific 
Coast.  That  part  was  easy.  He  and  I 
together  visited  the  offices  of  the  corpora- 
tions owning  the  wires  on  that  pole.  As 
they  had  no  legal  right  of  way  they  had 
to  promise  to  remove  it  and  many  others, 
to  the  tune  of  several  hundred  dollars. 
Nothing  was  left  them  but  the  game  of  de- 
lay. They  told  me  their  men  were  busy, 
that  all  the  copper  wire  was  held  up  by  a 
landslide  in  the  Panama  Canal,  that  the 
superintendent  was  on  a  vacation,  etc. 
However,  the  latter  gentleman  had  to 
come  back  some  time,  and  when  he  did  I 
plaintively  told  him  my  troubles.     I  said 

[12] 


THE  SMILING  HILI^TOP 

I  had  had  a  very  hard  and  disappointing 
summer,  and  that  it  would  soothe  me 
enormously  to  have  one  look  at  that  view 
as  the  Lord  intended  it  to  be,  before  I  had 
to  go  away  for  the  winter,  that  it  was  in 
his  power  to  give  me  that  pleasure,  etc. 

Perhaps  it  was  an  unusual  method,  but 
it  worked  so  well  that  I  have  often  em- 
ployed it  since.  I  may  say  incidentally 
that  it  is  of  no  use  with  the  ice  man. 
Perhaps  dealing  with  merchandise  below 
zero  keeps  his  resistance  unusually  good. 
I  have  never  been  able  to  extract  a  pound 
of  ice  from  him,  even  for  illness,  except  on 
his  regular  day  and  in  my  proper  turn.  I 
think  I  should  also  except  the  fish  man, 
who  always  promises  to  call  Fridays  and 
never  does;  much  valuable  time  have  I 
lost  in  searching  the  highways  and  byways 
for  his  old  horse  and  white  wagon. 

Next  to  the  execution  of  the  telegraph 

[13] 


THE  SMILING  HILI^TOP 

pole  I  felt  a  little  grass  lawn  to  be  of  the 
utmost  importance.  Nothing  could  better 
show  how  short  a  time  I  had  been  in  Cali- 
fornia than  not  to  realize  that  even  if  you 
can  afford  to  dine  on  caviar,  pate  de  fois 
gras,  and  fresh  mushrooms,  grass  may  be 
beyond  your  means.  I  bravely  had  the 
ground  prepared  and  sown.  First,  the 
boys'  governess  watered  it  so  hard  that  it 
removed  all  the  seed,  so  we  tried  again. 
Then  the  water  was  shut  off  while  pipes 
were  being  laid  on  the  highway  below,  and 
only  at  dawn  and  after  dark  could  we  get 
a  drop.  I  did  the  watering  in  my  night- 
gown, and  was  soon  rewarded  by  a  little 
green  fuzz.  Then  all  the  small  rabbits  for 
miles  around  gathered  there  for  breakfast. 
They  were  so  tame  you  could  hardly  drive 
them  away,  so  I  invited  the  brothers  who 
kept  the  hardware  store  in  the  village  to 

1 14] 


THE  SMILING  HILI^TOP 

come  up  and  shoot  them.  They  came 
gladly  and  brought  their  friends,  but  were 
so  very  anxious  to  help  that  I  thought  they 
were  going  to  shoot  the  children  too,  and 
had  politely  to  withdraw  my  invitation. 
The  gardener  and  I  then  made  a  luscious 
compound  of  bacon  grease  and  rough-on- 
rats,  which  we  served  on  lettuce  leaves 
and  left  about  the  edges  of  the  grass  plot. 
Did  you  ever  hear  a  rabbit  scream  ?  They 
do.  I  felt  Hke  Lucretia  Borgia,  and  de- 
cided that  if  they  wanted  the  lawn  they 
could  have  it.  Oddly  enough,  a  lot  of 
grass  came  up  in  quite  another  part  of  the 
garden.  I  suppose  it  was  the  first  planting 
that  Fraulein  had  blown  away  with  the 
hose!  We  often  have  surprises  like  that 
in  gardening.  We  once  planted  window- 
boxes  of  mignonette  and  they  came  up 
petunias — volunteer  petunias  at  that.  Of 
[IS] 


THE  SMILING  HILD-TOP 

course,  it  all  adds  to  the  interest  and  ad- 
venture of  life. 

After  the  water-pipes  were  laid  the  gas 
deserted  us,  and  we  had  a  few  meals  cooked 
on  all  the  little  alcohol  lamps  we  could 
muster.  Then  the  motor  fell  desperately 
ill,  and  from  then  on  was  usually  to  be 
found  strewed  over  the  floor  of  the  garage. 
Jerome  K.  Jerome  says  about  bicycles,  that 
if  you  have  one  you  must  decide  whether 
you  will  ride  it  or  overhaul  it.  This  ap- 
plies as  well  to  motors.  We  decided  to 
overhaul  ours  with  a  few  brief  excursions, 
just  long  enough  to  give  an  opportunity 
for  having  it  towed  home.  One  late  after- 
noon we  were  hurrying  across  the  mesa  to 
supper,  when  our  magneto  flew  off*  into  the 
ditch,  scattering  screws  in  all  directions. 
Fortunately,  a  kind  of  Knight  Errant  to 
our  family  appeared  just  in  the  nick  of 
[i6] 


THE  SMILING  HILL-TOP 

time  to  take  us  home  and  send  help  to  the 
wreck.  I  once  kept  a  garage  in  San  Diego 
open  half  an  hour  after  closing  time  by  a 
Garuso  sob  in  my  voice  over  the  telephone, 
while  my  brother-in-law's  miserable  chauf- 
feur hurried  over  for  an  indispensable  part. 

Poppy,  the  cow,  contributed  her  bit — it 
wasn't  milk,  either — to  this  complicated 
month,  but  deserves  a  chapter  all  to  her- 
self. 

The  backbone  of  the  family  found  my 
letters  "so  entertaining''  at  first,  but  grad- 
ually a  note  of  uneasiness  crept  into  his 
replies  after  I  had  told  him  that  Joedy  had 
fallen  out  of  the  machine  and  had  just 
escaped  our  rear  wheels,  and  that  the  pre- 
vious night  we  had  had  three  earthquakes. 
I  had  never  felt  an  earthquake  before,  and 
it  will  be  some  time  before  I  develop  the 
nonchalance    of   a    seasoned    Cahfornian, 

[I?] 


THE  SMILING  HILL-TOP 

whose  way  of  referring  to  one  is  like  saying, 
"Oh,  yes,  we  did  have  a  few  drops  of  rain 
last  night."  One  more  little  tremble  and 
I  should  have  gathered  the  family  for  a 
night  in  the  garden. 

After  an  incendiary  had  set  fire  to  sev- 
eral houses  in  town,  and  Fraulein  had  had 
a  peculiar  seizure  that  turned  her  a  delicate 
sea-green,  while  she  murmured,  "I  am 
going  to  die,"  I  sat  down  and  took  counsel 
with  myself.  What  next  ?  I  bought  a 
rattlesnake  antidote  outfit — that,  at  least, 
I  could  anticipate,  and  then  I  went  out 
with  the  axe  and  hacked  out  the  words 
'*Suma  Paz"  from  the  pergola.  We  are 
now  "The  Smiling  Hill-Top,"  for  though 
peace  does  not  abide  with  us,  we  keep 
right  on  smiling. 


[i8] 


MUfOfaia^ 


I 


T  would  doubtless  be  the  proper  thing 
for  me  to  begin  by  quoting  Stevenson: 

"The  friendly  cow,  all  red  and  white, 
I  love  with  all  my  heart,"  etc. 


but  Yd  rather  not.  In  the  first  place  she 
wasn't,  and  in  the  second  place  I  didn't. 
The  only  thing  about  it  that  fits  is  the  color 
scheme;  Poppy  was  a  red-and-white  cow, 

[19] 


THE  SMILING  HILL-TOP 

or  rather  a  kind  of  strawberry  roan. 
Perhaps  she  didn't  like  being  inherited 
(she  came  to  us  with  "The  Smiling  Hill- 
Top"),  or  maybe  she  was  lonely  on  the 
hillside  and  felt  that  it  was  too  far  from 
town.  Almost  all  the  natives  of  the  vil- 
lage feel  that  way;  or  perhaps  she  took  one 
of  those  aversions  to  me  that  aren't  founded 
on  anything  in  particular.  At  any  rate,  I 
never  saw  any  expression  but  resentment 
in  her  eye,  so  that  no  warm  friendship  ever 
grew  up  between  us. 

The  only  other  cow  we  ever  boarded — I 
use  the  word  advisedly — did  not  feel  any 
more  drawn  to  me  than  Poppy.  Evidently 
I  am  not  the  type  that  cows  entwine  their 
affections  about.  She  was  Pennsylvania 
Dutch  and  shared  Poppy's  sturdy  appe- 
tite, though  it  all  went  to  figure.  Two 
quaint  maiden  ladies  next  door  took  care 

[20] 


A  CALIFORNIA  POPPY 


of  her  and  handed  the  milk  over  our  fence, 
while  it  was  still  foaming  in  the  pail.  Miss 
Tabitha  and  Miss  Letitia — how  patient 
they  were  with  me  in  my  abysmal  igno- 
rance of  the  really  vital  things  of  life,  such 
as  milking,  preserving,  and  pickling !  They 
undertook  it  all  for  me,  but  in  the  end  I 
had  a  small  laugh  at  their  expense.  I 
gave  them  my  grandmother's  recipes  for 
brandied  peaches  and  pickled  peaches,  and 
though  rigidly  temperance,  they  consented 
to  do  a  dozen  jars  of  each.  Alas !  they 
mingled  the  two — now  as  I  write  it  down  I 
wonder  if  perhaps  they  did  it  on  purpose, 
on  the  principle  that  drug  stores  now  put 
a  dash  of  carbolic  in  our  95  per  cent  alco- 
hol. In  which  case,  of  course,  the  joke  is 
on  me. 

To  return  to  Poppy.     At  first  I  was  de- 
lighted with  the  thought  of  unlimited  milk, 
[21] 


THE  SMILING  HILL-TOP 

bought  a  churn  and  generally  prepared  to 
enjoy  being  a  dairymaid.  I  soon  found 
out  my  mistake.  Poppy  was  "drying  up" 
just  as  the  vegetation  was.  The  Finn 
woman  who  milked  her  morning  and 
night,  and  who  seemed  to  be  in  much  closer 
sympathy  with  her  than  I  ever  hoped  to 
be,  said  that  what  she  must  have  was 
green  food.  Having  no  lawn,  for  reasons 
previously  stated,  that  was  a  poser.  My 
brother-in-law's  chauffeur,  who  was  lent 
to  me  for  a  month,  unbent  sufficiently  to 
go  to  town  and  press  a  bill  into  the  hand 
of  the  head  gardener  of  "The  Place"  of 
the  village,  so  that  we  might  have  the 
grass  mowed  from  that  lawn.  Alas  for 
frail  human  nature !  It  seems  that  he  dis- 
appeared from  view  about  once  in  so  often, 
and  that  his  feet  at  that  moment  were 
trembhng  on  the  brink.     So  he  sUd  over 

[22] 


A  CALIFORNIA  POPPY 


the  edge,  and  the  next  man  in  charge  had 
other  friends  with  other  cows.  I  tried  the 
vegetable  man  next.  He  was  a  pleasant 
Greek,  and  promised  me  all  his  beet-tops 
and  wilted  lettuce.  That  was  good  as  far 
as  it  went,  but  Poppy  would  go  through  a 
crate  of  lettuce  as  I  would  a  bunch  of 
grapes,  and  I  couldn't  see  that  we  got  any 
more  milk.  The  Finn  woman  said  that 
the  flies  annoyed  her  and  that  no  cow 
would  give  as  much  milk  if  she  were  con- 
stantly kicking  and  stamping  to  get  them 
off.  She  advised  me  to  get  some  burlap 
for  her.  That  seemed  simple,  but  it 
wasn't.  Nothing  was  simple  connected 
with  that  cow.  I  found  I  could  only  get 
stiff  burlap,  such  as  you  put  on  walls,  in 
art  green,  and  I  couldn't  picture  Poppy  in 
a  kimono  of  that  as  being  anything  but 
wretched.     Finally,  in  a  hardware  store, 

[23] 


THE  SMILING  HILL-TOP 

the  proprietor  took  an  interest  in  my  sad 
tale,  and  said  he'd  had  some  large  ship- 
ments come  in  lately  wrapped  in  burlap, 
and  that  I  could  have  a  piece.  He  person- 
ally went  to  the  cellar  for  it  and  gave  it  to 
me  as  a  present. 

Much  cheered,  I  hurried  home  and  we 
put  Poppy  into  her  brown  jacket,  securing 
it  neatly  with  strings.  By  morning,  I  re- 
gret to  say,  she  had  kicked  it  to  shreds. 
Also  the  Finn  woman  decided  that  she 
needed  higher  pay  and  more  milk  as  her 
perquisite.  Since  we  were  obviously  "city 
folks"  she  thought  she  might  as  well  hold 
us  up,  and  she  felt  sure  that  I  couldn't  get 
any  one  in  her  place.  I  surprised  her  by 
calmly  replying  that  she  could  go  when 
her  week  was  up,  and  I  would  get  some 
one  else.  It  was  a  touch  of  rhetoric  on 
my  part,  for  I  didn't  suppose  that  I  could 

[24] 


A  CALIFORNIA  POPPY 


any  more  than  she  did,  though  I  was  re- 
solved to  make  a  gallant  fight,  even  if  I 
had  to  enlist  the  services  of  the  dry  cleaner, 
who  was  the  only  person  who  voluntarily 
called  almost  daily  to  see  if  we  had  any 
work  to  be  done. 

The  joke  of  it  was  that  I  had  no  trouble 
at  all.  A  youth  of  sixteen,  who  viewed 
me  in  the  light  of  ** opportunity  knocking 
at  the  door,"  gladly  accepted  my  terms. 
He  was  the  son  of  the  foreman  at  a  dairy 
in  the  neighborhood,  and  rode  over  night 
and  morning  on  a  staid  old  mare  loaned 
him  by  the  dairyman. 

Donald  was  bright  and  willing,  and 
eventually  was  able  to  get  near  enough  to 
Poppy  to  milk  her,  though  she  never  liked 
him.  The  Finn  woman  was  the  only  per- 
son with  whom  she  was  in  sympathy.  I 
think  they  were  both  Socialists.  Donald 
[2S] 


THE  SMILING  HILL-TOP 

said  we  must  do  something  about  the 
flies.  I  told  him  about  my  attempts  to 
dress  her  in  burlap,  and  we  concluded  that 
a  spray  was  the  thing.  Donald  brought 
a  nice  antiseptic  smelling  mixture,  and  we 
put  it  on  her  with  the  rose  sprayer.  Prob- 
ably we  were  too  impulsive;  anyway,  the 
milk  was  very  queer.  Did  you  ever  eat 
saffron  cake  in  Cornwall  ?  It  tasted  like 
that.  The  children  declined  it  firmly,  and 
I  sympathized  with  them.  After  practice 
we  managed  to  spray  her  in  a  more  limited 
way. 

By  this  time  we  were  having  sherbet 
instead  of  ice-cream  for  Sunday  dinner, 
and  my  ideas  of  a  private  cow  had  greatly 
altered. 

I  have  a  black  list  that  has  been  growing 
through  life;  things  I  wish  never  to  have 
again:    tapioca   pudding,  fresh  eggs  if  I 

[26] 


A  CALIFORNIA  POPPY 


have  to  hear  the  hen  brag  about  it  at  5  a.m., 
tripe,  and  home-grown  milk,  and  to  this 
list  I  have  lately  added  cheese.  Every 
one  is  familiar  with  the  maxim  that  rest  is 

a    change    of   occupation.     J ,    being 

tired  of  Latin  verbs,  Greek  roots,  and  dull 
scholars  generally,  took  up  some  irfferest- 
ing  laboratory  work  after  we  emigrated  to 
California.  Growing  Bulgarian  bacilli  to 
make  fermented  milk  that  would  keep  us 
all  perennially  amiable  while  we  grew  to 
be  octogenarians,  was  one  thing,  but  when 
the  company,  lured  by  the  oratory  of  a 
cheese  expert,  were  beguiled  into  making 
cream  cheese — ^just  the  sort  of  cheese  that 
Lucullus  and  Ponce  de  Leon  both  wanted 
but  did  not  find — our  troubles  began. 
The  company  is  composed  of  one  minister 
with  such  an  angelic  expression  that  no  one 
can  refuse  to  sign  anything  if  he  holds  out 

[27] 


THE  SMILING  HILL-TOP 

a  pen ;  one  aviator  with  youth,  exuberant 
spirits,  and  a  New  England  setness  of  pur- 
pose; one  schoolmaster — strong  on  facing 
facts  and  callous  to  camouflage,  and  one 
temperamental  cheese  man.  (It  turned 
out  afterward,  however,  that  the  janitor 
could  make  the  best  cheese  of  them  all.) 
Developing  a  cheese  business  is  a  good 
deal  like  conducting  a  love  afFair — it  blows 
hot  and  cold  in  a  nerve-racking  way.  It 
is  "the  PubHc.''  You  never  can  tell  about 
the  PubHc !  Sometimes  it  wants  small 
packages  for  a  small  sum,  or  large  pack- 
ages for  more,  but  mostly,  what  it  frankly 
wants  is  a  large  package  for  a  small  sum ! 
Some  dealers  didn't  like  the  trade-mark. 
It  was  changed.  It  then  turned  out  that 
the  first  trade-mark  was  really  what  was 
wanted.  Then  the  cheese  man  fell  des- 
perately  ill,   which   was   a   calamity,   as 

[28] 


A  CALIFORNIA  POPPY 


neither  the  Book  of  Common  Prayer,  an 
aeroplane,  nor  a  Latin  Grammar  is  what 
you  need  in  such  a  crisis. 

J waded  dejectedly  about  in  whey 

until  a  new  cheese  man  took  the  helm. 
He  also  fell  ill.  I  always  supposed  that 
making  cheese  was  a  kind  of  healthful, 
bucolic  occupation,  but  I  was  wrong.  Ap- 
parently every  one  that  tries  it  steers 
straight  for  a  nervous  break-down.  I  have 
gotten  to  a  point  myself  where,  if  any  one 
quotes  "Miss  MufFet"  to  me,  I  emit  a 
low,  threatening  growl. 

However,  Fm  digressing,  for  our  life  was 
not  complicated  by  cheese  or  Bulgarian 
bacilli  till  much  later  (and  when  you  think 
of  what  the  Bulgos  have  done  to  the  Bal- 
kans we  can't  really  complain). 

That  first  summer  Poppy  seemed  care 
enough.    A  neighbor  across  the  canyon, 

[29] 


THE  SMILING  HILL-TOP 

who  had  known  her  in  her  girlhood,  took 
too  vital  an  interest  in  her  daily  life.  It 
was  maddening  to  be  called  on  the  tele- 
phone at  all  hours  and  told  that  Poppy  had 
had  no  fresh  drinking  water  since  such 
and  such  an  hour,  or  to  have  Donald  way- 
laid and  admonished  to  give  her  plenty  to 
eat.  That  she  had,  as  my  bills  at  the  feed 
and  fuel  store  can  prove. 

At  this  juncture  the  backbone  of  the 
family  fell  desperately  ill,  and  I  flew  to 
the  hospital  where  he  was,  leaving  Poppy 
to  kick  and  stamp  and  lose  tethering  pins 
and  dry  up  at  her  own  sweet  will.  After 
the  danger  and  strain  were  over,  I  found 
myself  also  tucked  into  a  hospital  bed, 
while  a  trained  nurse  watched  over  the 
children  and  Poppy.  One  morning  a  fran- 
tic letter  arrived.  Poppy  had  dried  up ! 
According  to  what  lights  we  had  to  guide 

[30] 


A  CALIFORNIA  POPPY 


us,  it  was  far  too  soon,  but  reasoning  did 
not  alter  the  fact.  There  was  no  milk  for 
the  boys,  and  the  dairyman  had  always 
declined  to  deliver  milk  on  our  hill,  it  was 
outside  his  route  1  Two  helpless  persons 
flat  on  their  backs  in  a  hospital  are  at  a 
disadvantage  in  a  crisis  like  that.  How- 
ever, one  must  always  find  a  way.  I  think 
I  have  expressed  myself  elsewhere  as  to 
the  value  of  wheedling.  It  seemed  our 
only  hope.  I  wrote  a  letter  to  the  owner 
of  that  dairy,  in  which  I  frankly  recognized 
the  fact  that  our  hill  was  steep  and  the 
road  bad,  that  it  was  out  of  his  way  and 
probably  he  had  no  milk  to  spare,  any- 
way, but  that  Billie  and  Joe  had  to 
have  milk,  and  that  their  parents  were 
both  down  and  out,  and  that  it  was  his 
golden  opportunity  to  do,  not  a  stroke  of 
business,    but    an    act    of   kindness!    It 

[31] 


THE  SMILING  HILI^TOP 

worked.  He  has  been  serving  us  with  milk 
ever  since,  and  Fd  Hke  to  testify  that  his 
heart  is  in  the  right  place. 

Before  I  leave  the  subject  of  wheedling, 
I  might  add  that  if  it  is  a  useful  art  in  sum- 
mer, in  winter  it  is  priceless.  After  a 
week  of  rain,  such  as  we  know  how  to 
have  in  these  parts,  adobe  becomes  very 
slippery.  This  hill  is  steep,  and  I  have 
spent  a  week  on  its  top  in  February,  feeling 
like  the  princess  in  the  fairy  tale,  who  lived 
on  a  glass  hill  ready  to  marry  the  first 
suitor  who  reached  the  top;  only  in  my 
case  there  were  no  suitors  at  all;  even  the 
telegraph  boy  declined  to  try  his  luck. 

Speaking  of  telegrams,  I  think  that  as 
a  source  of  interest  we  have  been  a  boon 
to  this  village.  One  departing  friend  tele- 
graphed in  Latin,  beginning  "Salve  atque 
vale."  This  was  a  poser.  The  operator 
tried  to  telephone  it,  but  gave  that  up. 

[32] 


A  CALIFORNIA  POPPY 


He  said,  "It's  either  French  or  a  code." 
The  following  season  he  referred  to  it 
again,  remarking,  *'A  telegram  like  that 
just  gets  my  goat." 

But  to  return  to  the  now  thoroughly  dry 
Poppy.  We  determined  to  sell  her,  in 
spite  of  the  fact  that  we  never  are  very 
successful  in  selling  anything.  Things  al- 
ways seem  at  their  bottom  price  when  we 
have  something  to  dispose  of,  while  we 
usually  buy  when  the  demand  outruns  the 
supply.  Still,  I  once  conducted  several 
quite  successful  transactions  with  an  an- 
tique dealer  in  Pennsylvania.  I  think  I 
was  said  to  be  the  only  living  woman  who 
had  ever  gotten  the  best  of  a  bargain  with 
him,  so  I  was  unanimously  elected  by  the 
family  as  the  one  to  open  negotiations.  A 
customer  actually  appeared.  We  gradu- 
ally approached  a  price  by  the  usual 
stages,  I  dwelling  on  his  advantage  in  hav- 

[33] 


THE  SMILING  HILL-TOP 

ing  the  calf  and  trying  not  to  let  him  see 
my  carking  fear  that  we  might  be  the  un- 
willing godparents  of  it  if  he  didn't  hurry 
up  and  come  to  terms.  At  last  the  matter 
was  settled.  I  abandoned  my  last  five- 
dollar  ditch,  thinking  that  the  relief  of  see- 
ing the  last  of  Poppy  would  be  cheap  at 
the  price.  There  were  four  of  us,  and 
we  would  not  hesitate  to  pay  two  dollars 
each  for  theatre  tickets,  which  would  be 
eight  dollars,  so  really  I  was  saving  money. 

A  nice  little  girl  with  flaxen  pigtails 
brought  her  father's  check.  She  and  her 
brother  tied  Poppy  behind  their  buggy  and 
slowly  disappeared  down  the  hill.  There 
was  the  flutter  of  a  handkerchief  from  the 
other  side  of  the  canyon,  and  that  was  all. 

In  the  words  of  that  disturbing  tele- 
gram: 

"Salve  atque  vale." 

134] 


"Venite  agile,  batch etta  mia 
Santa  Lucia,  Santa  Lucia ! " 

accompanied  by  the  enchanting  fragrance 
of  burning  sage-brush,  is  wafted  up  to  my 
sleeping-porch,  and  I  know  that  Signor 
Constantino  Garibaldi  is  early  at  work 
clearing  the  canyon  side  so  that  our  Ma- 
tilija  poppies  shall  not  be  crowded  out  by 
the  wild.  It  is  a  pleasant  awakening  to  a 
[35] 


\. 


THE  SMILING  HILIr-TOP 

pleasant  world  as  the  light  morning  mist 
melts  away  from  a  bay  as  "bright  and 
soft  and  bloomin'  blue''  as  any  Kipling 
ever  saw.  It  seems  almost  too  good  to  be 
true,  that  in  a  perfect  Italian  setting  we 
should  have  stumbled  on  an  Italian  gar- 
dener, who  whistles  Verdi  as  he  works. 
True,  he  doesn't  know  the  flowers  by 
name,  and  in  his  hands  a  pair  of  clippers 
are  as  fatal  as  the  shears  in  the  hands  of 
Atropos,  but  he  is  in  the  picture.  When  I 
see  gardeners  pruning  I  realize  that  that 
lady  of  destiny  shows  wonderful  restraint 
about  our  threads  of  fate — the  temptation 
to  snip  seems  so  irresistible. 

Signor  Garibaldi  is  a  retired  wine  mer- 
chant driven  out-of-doors  by  illness,  a 
most  courteous  and  sensitive  soul,  with  a 
talent  for  letter-writing  that  is  alone  worth 
all  the  plumbago  blossoms  that  he  cut 

[36] 


GARDENERS 


away  last  year.     The  following  letter  was 

written  to  J while  Garibaldi  was  in 

charge  of  our  hill-top,  the  bareness  of 
which  we  strove  to  cover  with  wild  flowers 
until  we  could  make  just  the  kind  of  gar- 
den we  wanted : 

March  15. 
Dear  Sir: 

The  last  time  I  had  the  pleasure  of  see  you  in 
your  place,  Villa  Collina  Ridente,  you  exclaimed 
with  a  melancholic  voice,  "Only  poppies  and 
mignonette  came  out  of  the  wild  flower  seeds." 
"  So  it  is,"  said  I  in  the  same  tune  of  voice.  Time 
proved  we  was  both  wrong;  many  other  flowers 
made  their  retarded  appearance,  so  deserving  the 
name  of  wild  flower  garden.  .  .  . 

Your  place  (pardon  me  as  I  am  not  a  violet) 
could  look  better,  also  could  look  worse;  conse- 
quently I  consider  myself  entitled  to  be  placed  be- 
tween hell  and  paradise — to  have  things  as  one 
wishes  is  an  insolvable  problem — that  era  has  not 
come  yet. 

Many  people  come  over  to  the  Smiling  hills,  some 
think  it  is  not  necessary  to  go  any  farther  to  collect 

[  37  ] 


THE  SMILING  HILI^TOP 

flower  to  make  a  bouquet.  With  forced  gentle  man- 
ner I  reproached  some  of  them,  ordering  to  observe 
the  rule,  "vedere  e  non  toccare.'*  It  go  in  force 
while  I  am  present,  not  so  in  my  absence.  Those 
that  made  proverbs,  their  names  ought  to  be  im- 
mortal. Here  for  one,  "When  the  cat  is  gone,  the 
rats  dance."  How  much  true  is  in  the  Say.  Every 
visitor  like  the  place  profane  or  not  profane  in  artis- 
tic matter. 

A  glorious  rain  came  last  night  to  the  great  con- 
tent of  the  farmers  and  gardeners — others  not  so. 
While  I  am  writing  from  my  Observatorio  I  can't 
see  any  indication  of  stopping.  I  don't  think  it  will 
rain  as  much  as  when  we  had  the  universal  deluge, 
but  if  the  cause  of  said  deluge  was  in  order  to  get  a 
better  generation,  it  may.  I  don't  think  the  actual 
generation  is  better  than  it  was  the  anti-deluge, 
pardon  me  if  you  can't  digest  what  I  say.  I  am  a 
pessimist  to  the  superlative  grade,  and  it  is  not 
without  reason  that  I  say  so.  I  had  sad  experience 
with  the  World.  Thank  God  for  having  doted  me 
with  a  generous  dose  of  philosophic!  Swimming 
against  the  tide,  not  me,  not  such  a  fool  I  am ! 

Here  is  another  pardon  that  I  have  to  ask  and  it 
is  to  take  the  liberty  of  decorate  the  Smiling  hill 
with  the  American  flag.  La  Bandiera  Stellata 
(note:  I  am  not  an  American  legally,  no;  to  say  I 

[38] 


GARDENERS 


renounce  to  my  country,  impossible,  but  I  am  an 
American  by  heart  if  U.  Sam  can  use  me.  I  was  not 
trained  to  be  a  soldier,  but  in  matter  of  shooting 
very  seldom  I  fail  to  get  a  rabbit  when  I  want  it, 
more  so  lately  that  a  box  of  shells  from  60  cents 
jumped  to  $1.00).  As  a  rule  the  ridents  colline  are 
very  monotonous,  but  when  I  am  home,  more  so  the 
Sunday,  the  "Marseillaise"  no  where  is  heard  more 
than  here;  no  animosity  against  nobody;  Cosmopoli- 
tan, ardent  admirer  of  C.  Paine !  The  world  is  my 
country;  to  do  good  is  my  religion ! 

With  fervent  wishes  of  not  having  need  of  doc- 
tors or  lawyers;  with  best  regards  to  you  and  family. 

Yours  respectfully, 

Constantino  Garibaldi. 

Unquestionably  he  has  humor.  After 
receiving  more  or  less  mixed  orders  from 
me,  I  have  heard  him  softly  singing  in  the 
courtyard,  "Donna  e  mobile."  I  only  re- 
gret that  as  a  family  we  aren't  musical 
enough  to  assist  with  the  "Sextette"  from 
"Lucia!" 

Ever  since  we  came  to  CaHfornia  we 

[39] 


THE  SMILING  HILL-TOP 

have  been  lucky  about  gardeners.  I  don't 
mean  as  horticulturists,  but  from  the  far 
more  important  standard  of  picturesque- 
ness.  Of  course  no  one  could  equal  Gari- 
baldi with  the  romance  of  a  distant  rela- 
tionship to  the  patriot  and  the  grand  man- 
ner no  rake  or  hoe  could  efface,  but  Bank- 
sleigh  had  his  own  interest.  He  was  an 
Englishman  with  pale  blue  eyes  that  al- 
ways seemed  to  be  looking  beyond  our 
horizon  into  space.  There  was  something 
rather  poetic  and  ethereal  about  him. 
Perhaps  he  didn't  eat  enough,  or  it  may 
have  been  the  effect  of  **New  Thought,"  in 
one  of  the  fifty-seven  varieties  of  which 
he  was  a  firm  believer.  He  told  me  that 
his  astral  colors  were  red  and  blue,  and 
that  a  phrenologist  had  told  him  that  a 
bump  on  the  back  of  his  head  indicated 
that  he  ought  never  to  buy  mining  stock. 

[40] 


GARDENERS 


With  the  same  instinct  that  undid  Blue- 
beard's and  Lot's  wives  he  had  tried  it, 
and  is  once  more  back  at  his  job  of  gar- 
dening with  an  increased  respect  for 
phrenology. 

I  have  a  grudge  against  phrenologists 
myself.  I  had  a  relative  who  went  to  one 
when  he  was  a  young  man,  and  was  told 
that  he  had  a  wonderful  baritone  voice  that 
he  ought  to  cultivate.  Up  to  that  time 
he  had  only  played  the  flute,  but  after- 
wards he  sang  every  evening  through  a 
long  life. 

It  distressed  Banksleigh  to  see  me  lying 
about  in  hammocks  on  the  verandah.  He 
usually  managed  to  give  the  vines  in  my 
neighborhood  extra  attention — like  Gari- 
baldi, he  was  a  confirmed  pruner.  He 
told  me  that  he  wished  I  would  take 
up  New  Thought,  and  was  sure  that  if  I 
[41] 


THE  SMILING  HILL-TOP 

thought  strong  Vd  be  strong.  I  wonder  ? 
One  summer,  lying  in  bed  in  a  hospital 
where  the  heat  was  terrific,  I  found  myself 
repeating  over  and  over: 

"Sabrina  fair,  *> 

Listen  where  thou  art  sitting, ' 
Under  the  glassy,  cool,  translucent  wave," 

and  finding  it  far  more  cooHng  than  iced 
orange  juice.  Was  not  I  proving  Bank- 
sleigh's  contention  ?  I  was  thinking  cool 
and  I  was  cool.  In  his  own  case  New 
Thought  seemed  to  work.  He  always 
looked  ready  to  give  up  forever,  and  yet 
he  never  did. 

California  is  full  of  people  with  queer 
quirks  and  they  aren't  confined  to  garden- 
ers. I  haven't  had  a  hair-dresser  who 
wasn't  occult  or  psychic  or  something, 
from  the  Colonial  Dame  with  premonitions 
to  the  last  one,  who  had  both  inspirations 

[42] 


GARDENERS 


and  vibrations,  and  my  hair  keeps  right  on 
coming  out. 

I  don't  quite  understand  why  gardeners 
should  be  queer.  They  say  that  cooks  in- 
variably become  affected  in  time  by  so 
much  bending  over  a  hot  stove,  and  that 
is  easy  to  understand,  but  bending  over 
nature  ought  to  have  quite  the  opposite 
effect,  but  it  doesn't  always.  The  lady 
gardener  who  laid  out  the  garden  that 
finally  replaced  our  wild-flower  tangle, 
proved  that.  She  had  a  voice  that  would 
be  wonderful  in  a  shipyard,  a  firmness  and 
determination  that  would  be  an  asset  to 
Congress  and  a  very  kind  heart,  also  much 
taste  and  infinite  knowledge  of  the  prefer- 
ences and  peculiarites  of  California  plants. 
Her  right-hand  man,  "Will,"  was  also  odd. 
Unfortunately,  his  ideas  were  almost  the 
opposite  of  hers.     Before  they  arrived  at 

[43] 


THE  SMILING  HILI^TOP 

our  gate  sounds  of  altercation  were  only 
too  plain.  She  liked  curves  in  the  walks, 
he  preferred  corners;  she  liked  tangles,  he 
liked  regular  beds.  What  we  liked  seemed 
to  be  going  to  cut  very  little  figure.  All 
that  was  lacking  was  our  architect  friend, 
who  had  made  the  sketches  and  offered 
various  suggestions  of  "amusing"  things 
we  might  do.  He  also  is  firm,  though  his 
manner  is  mild,  so  the  situation  would  have 
been  even  more  "amusing"  for  the  family 
on  the  side  lines,  hatf  he  been  present. 
Owing  to  the  placing  of  the  house,  we  are 
doomed  to  have  a  lopsided  garden  what- 
ever we  do,  but  we  want  it  to  look  way- 
ward rather  than  eccentric.  After  a  bat- 
tle fought  over  nearly  every  inch  of  the 
ground  the  lady  was  victorious,  for  Will 
said  to  me  as  he  watched  her  motor  dis- 
appear:  "I   might   as  well   do  what  she 

[44] 


GARDENERS 


says  or  she'll  make  me  do  it  over."     In 

this  J and  I  heartily  concurred,  for 

the  simplest  of  arithmetical  calculations 
would  show  that  it  would  otherwise  prove 
expensive. 

Will  had  a  worker  whose  unhappy  lot  it 
was  to  dig  up  stumps,  apply  the  pick  to 
the  adobe  parts  of  the  soil,  and  generally 
to  toil  in  the  sweat  of  his  brow.  As  a 
team  they  made  some  progress,  and  I 
began  to  have  some  hope  of  enjoying  what 
I  had  always  been  led  to  believe  was  the 
treat  of  one's  life — making  a  garden.  I 
felt  entirely  care-free — the  lady  gardener 
was  the  boss  and  there  was  only  room  for 
one — directions  were  a  drug  on  the  mar- 
ket. This  state  of  affairs  was  short-lived. 
Will  failed  to  appear  the  third  day  out, 
and  the  lady  gardener^s  pumping  system 
for  her  nurseries  blew  up  or  leaked  or  lay 
[45] 


THE  SMILING  HILL-TOP 

down  on  the  job  in  some  way,  so  that  the 
worker  and  I  confronted  each  other,  igno- 
rant and  unbossed.  I  will  not  dwell  on 
the  week  that  followed.  The  lady  gar- 
dener gave  almost  vicious  orders  by  tele- 
phone and  the  worker  did  his  best,  but  it 
is  not  a  handy  way  to  direct  a  garden. 
When  the  last  rosebush  is  in,  including 
some  that  Will  is  gloomily  certain  will 
never  grow,  I  think  I  shall  go  away  for  a 
rest  to  some  place  where  there  is  only  cac- 
tus and  sage  and  sand. 

J arrived  on  the  scene  in  time  to 

save  the  day,  and  the  garden  is  very 
lovely.  Next  year  it  will  be  worth  going 
a  long  way  to  see,  for  in  this  part  of  the 
world  planting  things  is  like  playing  with 
Japanese  water  flowers.  A  wall  of  gray 
stucco  gently  curves  along  the  canyon 
side,  while  a  high  lattice  on  the  other  shows 
[46] 


GARDENERS 


dim  outlines  of  the  hills  beyond.  In  the 
wall  are  arches  with  gates  so  curved  as  to 
leave  circular  openings,  through  which  we 
get  glimpses  of  the  sea.  It  makes  me 
think  of  King  Arthur's  castle  at  Tintagel. 
In  the  lattice  there  is  a  wicket  gate. 
There  is  something  very  alluring  about  a 
wicket  gate — it  connotes  a  Robin.  Unfor- 
tunately, my  Robin  can  only  appear  from 
Friday  to  Monday,  but  I'm  not  complain- 
ing. Any  one  is  fortunate  who  can  count 
on  romance  two  days  out  of  seven.  At  the 
far  end  of  the  garden  is  a  screen  designed 
to  hide  the  peculiarites  of  the  garage. 
The  central  panel  is  concrete  with  a  win- 
dow with  green  balusters;  below  is  a  wall 
fountain.  The  window  suggests  a  half- 
hidden  sefiorita.  It  really  conceals  a  high- 
school  boy  who  is  driving  the  motor  for  me 
in  J 's  absence,  but  that  is  immaterial. 

[47] 


THE  SMILING  HILI^TOP 

The  fountain  is  set  with  sapphire-blue  tiles 

and  the  water  trickles  from  the  mouth  of 

the  most  amiable  lion  I  ever  saw.     He  was 

carved  from  Boise  stone  by  one  '*Luigi" 

from  a  sketch  by  our  architect  friend.     He 

has  Albrecht  Diirer  curls — the  lion  I  mean 

— four  on  a  side  that  look  like  sticks  of 

peppermint  candy  and  we  call  him  '*Boy- 

sey." 

The  pool  below  him  is  a  wonderful  place 

for  boat  sailing.     It  fairly  bristles  with  the 

masts  of  schooners  and  yachts,  and  the 

guns  of  torpedo  destroyers,  and  while  the 

architect  and  the  grown-ups  did  not  have 

a  naval  base  in  mind  when  the  sketch  was 

made,  I  do  appreciate  the  feelings  of  my 

sons. 

"There's  a  fountain  in  our  garden, 
With  the  brightest  bluest  tiles 
And  the  pleasantest  stone  lion 
Who  spits  into  it  and  smiles ! 

[48] 


GARDENERS 


It's  shaded  by  papyrus 
And  reeds  and  grasses  tall, 
Just  a  little  land-locked  harbor 
Beside  the  garden  wall. 

"They  talked  of  water-lilies 
And  lotus  pink  and  white — 
We  didn't  dare  to  say  a  word 
But  we  wished  with  all  our  might, 
For  how  could  we  manoeuvre 
The  submarine  we've  got, 
If  they  go  and  clutter  up  the  place 
With  all  that  sort  of  rot. 

"  But  mother  said  she  thought  perhaps 
We'd  wait  another  year, 
'It's  such  a  lovely  place  to  play. 
We  ought  to  keep  it  clear.* 
So  there's  nothing  but  a  goldfish 
Who  has  to  be  a  Hun, 
I  don't  suppose  he  likes  it. 
But  gee,  it's  lots  of  fun !" 

Some  day  we  are  going  to  have  a  sun 

dial.     J thought  of  a  wonderful  motto 

in  the  best  Latin,  and  now  he  can't  remem- 

[49] 


THE  SMILING  HILL-TOP 

ber  it,  which  is  harrowing,  because  it 
would  be  so  stylish  to  have  a  perfectly 
original  one.  It  was  something  about  not 
wanting  to  miss  the  shady  hours  for  the 
sake  of  having  all  sunny  ones.  At  any 
rate,  we  are  resolved  not  to  have  "I  count 
none  but  sunny  hours." 

There  are  all  kinds  of  responsibilities  in 
life,  and  picking  the  right  shade  of  paint 
for  a  house  you  have  to  live  in  is  a  most 
wearing  one.  Painting  the  trimming  of 
ours  in  connection  with  the  garden  was 
very  agitating.  I  had  sample  bits  of  board 
painted  and  took  them  about  town,  trying 
them  next  to  houses  I  liked,  and  at  last 
decided  on  a  wicked  Spanish  green  that  the 
storms  of  winter  are  expected  to  mellow. 
As  I  saw  it  being  put  on  the  house  I  felt 
panic-stricken.  For  a  nice  fresh  vegetable 
or  salad,  yes,  but  for  a  house — never! 
[so] 


GARDENERS 


And  yet  it  is  a  great  success !  I  don't  know 
whether  it  has  "sunk  in,"  as  the  painter 
consoled  me  by  predicting,  or  whether  it  is 
that  we  are  used  to  it;  at  any  rate,  every 
one  likes  it  so  much  that  I  have  cheerfully 
removed  smears  of  it  from  the  clothing  of 
all  the  family,  including  the  puppies'  tails. 
As  to  ourselves  in  the  role  of  gardeners 
— there  were  not  two  greener  greenhorns 
when  we  first  resolved  to  stay  in  California; 

we  still  are,  though  I  think  I  do  J an 

injustice  in  classing  him  with  me.  We  can 
make  geraniums  grow  luxuriantly,  but  we 
don't  want  to.  I  wish  they  would  pass  a 
law  in  Southern  California  making  the 
growing  of  red  geraniums  a  criminal  of- 
fense. So  many  people  love  to  combine 
them  with  bougainvilHa  and  other  brilliant 
pink  or  purple  flowers,  and  the  light  is 
hard  enough  on  eyes  without  adding  that 
[SI] 


THE  SMILING  HILL-TOP 

horror.  We  are  resolved  to  progress  from 
the  geranium  age  to  the  hardy  perennial 
class,  and  are  industriously  studying  books 
and  magazines  with  that  end  in  view. 
The  worst  of  garden  literature  is  that  it  is 
nearly  all  written  for  an  Eastern  climate. 
Once  I  subscribed  for  a  garden  magazine, 
lured  by  a  bargain  three  months'  offer. 
Never  again!  At  the  end  of  the  time, 
when  no  regular  subscription  came  in 
from  me,  letters  began  to  arrive.  Finally 
one  saying,  "You  probably  think  this  is 
another  letter  urging  you  to  subscribe.  It 
is  not;  it  is  only  to  beg  that  you  will  con- 
fidentially tell  us  why  you  do  not."  I 
told  him  that  all  our  conditions  here  are 
so  different  from  those  in  the  East.  Peo- 
ple want  Italian  and  Spanish  gardens,  and 
there  is  the  most  marvellous  choice  of 
flowers,  shrubs,  and  vines  with  which  to 

[52] 


GARDENERS 


get  them,  but  we  want  to  be  told  how, 
and  added  to  this,  it  is  heart-breaking  to 
love  a  fountain  nymph  in  the  advertise- 
ments and  to  find  that  her  travelHng  ex- 
penses would  bankrupt  you. 

One  marvellous  opportunity  we  have — 
the  San  Diego  Exposition,  whose  gardens 
are  more  lovely  than  ever,  though  soldiers 
and  sailors  are  feeding  the  pigeons  in  the 
Plaza  de  Panama  instead  of  tourists.  The 
real  intention  of  that  exposition  was  to 
show  people  in  this  part  of  the  world  what 
they  could  do  with  the  great  variety  of 
plants  and  shrubs  that  thrive  here. 

I  used  to  wonder  why  so  little  has  been 
written  about  gardeners  when  there  are 
shelves  and  shelves  of  volumes  on  gardens. 
There  are  no  famous  gardeners  in  litera- 
ture that  occur  to  me  at  the  moment  ex- 
cept Tagore's,  and  the  three  terrified  ones 
[S3] 


THE  SMILING  HILL-TOP 

in  Alice* s  Adventures  in  Wonderland^  who 
were  hurriedly  painting  the  white  roses 
red.  I  should  love  to  read  the  diary  of  the 
one  who  trimmed  the  borders  while  Boc- 
caccio's gay  company  were  occupying  that 
garden;  or  to  hear  what  the  head  gardener 
of  the  d'Este's  could  tell  us,  but  I  know 
now  why  it  is  so.  With  the  best  of  inten- 
tions I  haven't  been  able  to  avoid  the  pit- 
fall myself. 


54 


THERE  may  be  a  more  smiling  hill- 
top than  "La  Collina  Ridente" 
somewhere  on  the  Southern  California  edge 
of  the  Pacific  Ocean,  but  deep  down  in  my 
heart  I  don't  believe  that  there  is.  It  is 
just  the  right  size  hill-top — except  when  I 
first  began  to  drive  the  motor,  and  then  it 
seemed  a  trifle  small  for  turning  around. 
It's  just  high  enough  above  the  coast  high- 
way and  the  town  to  give  us  seclusion,  and 
it's  just  far  enough  from  the  waves  to  be 
peaceful.  It  used  to  be,  Called  "Suma 
Paz" — perfect  peace — but  we  changed  the 
name,  that  being  so  unpleasantly  sugges- 

[ssl 


THE  SMILING  HILL-TOP 

tive  of  angels,  and,  anyway,  there  isn't 
such  a  thing.  If  "The  Smiling  Hill-Top'* 
were  everything  it  seems  on  a  blue  and 
green  day  like  to-day,  for  instance,  it  would 
be  a  menace  to  my  character.  I  should 
never  leave,  I  should  exist  beautifully, 
leading  the  life  of  a  cauliflower  or  bit  of 
seaweed  floating  in  one  of  the  pools  in  the 
rocks,  or  to  be  even  more  tropically  poetic, 
a  lovely  lotus  flower !  I  should  not  bother 
about  the  children's  education  or  grieve 

over  J 's  bachelor  state  of  undarned 

socks  and  promiscuous  meals,  or  the  vari- 
ous responsibilities  I  left  behind  in  town, 
so  it  is  fortunate  that  there  are  thorns. 
Every  garden,  from  Eden  down,  has  pro- 
duced them. 

I  haven't  catalogued  mine,  I  have  just 
put  them  down  *' higgledy-piggledy,"  as 
we  used  to  say  when  we  were  children. 

[56] 


THORNS 


J 's  having  to  work  in  town,  too  far  to 

come  home  except  for  an  occasional  week- 
end, the  neighbors'  dogs,  servants,  Ber- 
muda grass,  tenants,  ants,  the  eccentrici- 
ties of  an  adobe  road  during  the  rains,  and 
the  lapses  of  the  delivery  system  of  the  vil- 
lage. Of  course  they  are  of  varying  de- 
grees of  unpleasantness.    J 's  absence 

is  horrid  but  the  common  lot,  so  I  have 
accepted  it  and  am  learning  "to  possess,  in 
loneliness,  the  joy  of  all  the  earth."  Truth 
compels  me  to  add  that  it  isn't  always 
loneliness,  either,  as,  for  example,  one 
week-end  that  was  much  cheered  by  a 
visit  from  our  architect  friend,  who  rode 
down  from  Santa  Barbara  in  his  motor, 
and  made  himself  very  popular  with  every 
member  of  the  household.  He  brought 
home  the  laundry,  bearded  the  ice  man  in 
his  lair,  making  ice-cream  possible  for  Sun- 
[57] 


THE  SMILING  HILIr-TOP 

day  dinner,  mended  the  garden  lattice, 
and  drew  entrancing  pictures  of  galleons 
sailing  in  from  fairy  shores  with  all  their 
canvas  spread,  for  the  boys.  As  we  waved 
our  handkerchiefs  to  him  from  the  Good- 
by  Gate  on  Monday,  Joedy  turned  to  me : 

"I  wish  he  didn't  have  to  go !"  A  little 
pause. 

**Muvs,  if  you  weren't  married  to 
Father,  how  would  you  like — "  but  here  I 
interrupted  by  calling  his  attention  to  a 
rabbit  in  the  canyon. 

One  thing  I  do  not  consider  a  part  of 
the  joy  of  all  the  earth — the  neighbors' 
dogs.  On  the  next  hill-top  is  an  Airedale 
with  a  voice  like  a  fog-horn.  He  is  an  un- 
gainly creature  and  thoroughly  disillu- 
sioned, because  his  family  keep  him  locked 
up  in  a  wire-screened  tennis-court,  where 
he  barks  all  day  and  nearly  all  night.     He 

[58] 


THORNS 


can  watch  the  motors  on  the  coast  road 
from  one  corner  of  his  cage,  and  that 
seems  to  drive  him  almost  wild.  He  ought 
to  realize  how  much  better  ofF  he  is  than 
the  Lady  of  Shalott,  who  only  dared  to 
watch  the  highway  to  Camelot  in  a  mirror ! 
Sometimes  he  has  a  bad  attack  of  lamen- 
tation in  the  night — he  is  quite  Jeremiah's 
peer  at  that — and  then  we  all  call  his  house 
on  the  telephone.  You  can  see  the  lights 
flash  on  in  the  various  cottages  and  hear 
the  tinkle  of  the  bell,  as  we  each  in  turn 
voice  our  indignation.  Once  I  even  saw  a 
white-robed  figure  in  the  road  across  the 
canyon,  and  heard  a  voice  borne  on  the 
night  wind,  "  For  heaven's  sake,  shut  that 
dog  up."  We  all  bore  it  with  Christian 
resignation  when  his  family  decided  to 
take  a  motor  camping  trip,  Prince  to  be 
included  in  the  party.  He  is  probably 
[59] 


THE  SMILING  HILL-TOP 

even  now  waking  the  echoes  on  Lake 
Tahoe,  or  barking  himself  hoarse  at  the 
Bridal  Veil  Falls  in  the  Yosemite,  but 
thank  goodness  we  can't  hear  him  quite 
as  far  away  as  that. 

I  dare  say  that  he  might  be  a  perfectly 
nice,  desirable  dog  if  he  had  had  any  early 
training.  Our  own  "pufflers,"  as  the  boys 
call  "Rags"  and  "Tags,"  their  twin  silver- 
haired  Yorkshire  terriers,  could  tell  him 
what  a  restraining  influence  the  force  of 
early  training  has  on  them,  even  on  moon- 
light nights. 

Prince  is  the  worst  affliction  we  have 
had,  but  not  the  only  one.  The  people  on 
the  mountain-slope  above  us  acquired  a 
yellowish  collie-like  dog  to  scare  away 
coyotes.  He  ought  to  have  been  a  success 
at  it,  though  I  don't  know  just  what  it 
takes  to  scare  a  coyote.     At  any  rate,  he 

[60] 


THORNS 


used  to  bark  long  and  grievously  about 
dawn  in  the  road  across  the  canyon.  One 
morning  I  was  almost  frantic  with  the 
irregularity  of  his  outbursts.  It  was  like 
waiting  for  the  other  shoe  to  drop.  Sud- 
denly a  rifle  shot  rang  out;  a  spurt  of  yel- 
low dust,   a  streak  of  yellow  dog,   and 

silence !     I  rushed  to  J *s  room,  to  find 

him  with  the  weapon,  still  smoking,  in  his 
hands.  I  begged  him  not  to  start  a  neigh- 
borhood feud,  even  if  we  never  slept  after 
dawn..  I  even  wept.  He  laughed  at  me. 
**I  didn't  shoot  at  him,"  he  said.  "I  shot 
a  foot  behind  him,  and  Fve  given  him  a 
rare  fright!"  He  had,  indeed.  The  ter- 
ror of  the  coyotes  never  came  near  us 
again. 

As  to  servants,  the  subject  is  so  rich 
that  I  can  only  choose.     Unfortunately, 
the  glory  of  the  view  does  not  make  up  to 
[6il 


THE  SMILING  HILL-TOP 

them  for  the  lack  of  town  bustle  and 
nightly  *' movies/*  so  it  isn't  always  easy 
to  make  comfortable  summer  arrange- 
ments. As  you  start  so  you  go  on,  for 
changing  horses  in  mid-stream  has  ever 
been  a  parlous  business.  A  temperamental 
high-school  boy  who  came  to  drive  the 
motor  and  water  the  garden,  though  he 
appeared  barefooted  to  drive  me  to  town, 
and  took  French  leave  for  a  day's  fishing, 
pinning  a  note  to  the  kitchen  door,  saying, 
"Expect  me  when  you  see  me  and  don't 
wait  dinner,"  afflicted  me  one  entire  sum- 
mer. I  tried  to  rouse  his  ambition  by 
pointing  out  the  capitalists  who  began  by 
digging  ditches — California  is  full  of  them 
— and  assuring  him  that  there  were  no 
heights  to  which  he  might  not  rise  by  pa- 
tient application,  etc.  It  was  no  use.  He 
watered  the  garden  when  I  watched  him; 

[62] 


THORNS 


otherwise  not.  I  came  to  the  final  conclu- 
sion that  he  was  in  love.  Love  is  responsi- 
ble for  so  much. 

Another  summer  I  decided  to  try  darkies 
and  carefully  selected  two  of  contrasting 
shades  of  brown.  The  cook  was  a  slim 
little  quadroon,  with  flashing  white  teeth 
and  hair  arranged  in  curious  small  dough- 
nuts all  over  her  head.  She  was  a  grass 
widow  with  quite  an  assortment  of  chil- 
dren, though  she  looked  little  more  than  a 
child  herself.  "Grandma"  was  taking 
care  of  them  while  the  worthless  husband 
was  supposed  to  be  running  an  elevator  in 
New  Orleans.  Essie  had  quite  lost  inter- 
est in  him,  I  gathered,  for  I  brought  her 
letters  and  candy  from  another  swain,  who 
used  such  thin  paper  that  I  couldn't  avoid 
seeing  the  salutation,  *'0h,  you  chicken!'* 

Mandy  was  quite  different.     She  was  a 

[63] 


THE  SMILING  HILI^TOP 

rich  seal  brown,  large  and  determined,  and 
had  left  a  husband  on  his  honor,  in  town. 
We  had  hardly  washed  off  the  dust  of  our 
long  motor-ride  before  trouble  began.  A 
telegram  for  Mandy  conveyed  the  dis- 
quieting news  that  George  had  been  ar- 
rested on  a  charge  of  assault  at  the  request 
of  "grandma."  It  appeared  that  after 
seeing  wifey  off  for  the  seashore  he  felt  the 
joy  of  bachelor  freedom  so  strongly  that 
he  dropped  in  to  see  Essie's  mother,  who 
gave  him  a  glass  of  sub  rosa  port,  which 
so  warmed  his  heart  that  he  tried  to  em- 
brace her.  Grandma  was  only  thirty-four 
and  would  have  been  pretty  except  for 
gaps  in  the  front  ranks  of  her  teeth.  She 
had  spirit  as  well  as  spirits,  and  had  him 
clapped  into  jail.  Telegrams  came  in — do 
you  say  droves,  covies,  or  flocks  ?  Night 
letters  especially,  and  long-distance  tele- 

[64] 


THORNS 


phone  calls — all  collect.  The  neighbors, 
the  Masons,  the  lawyer,  and  various 
relatives  all  went  into  minute  detail. 
Grandma,  being  the  injured  party,  pru- 
dently confined  herself  to  the  mail.  As 
we  have  only  one  servant's  room  and  that 
directly  under  my  sleeping-porch,  it  made 
it  very  pleasant!    The  choicest  telegram 

J took  down  late  one  night.     It  was 

from  one  of  Mandy's  neighbors,  and  ended 
with  the  illuminating  statement:  "George 
never  had  a  gun  or  a  knife  on  him;  he  was 
soused  at  the  time!"  Mandy  emerged 
from  bed,  clad  in  a  red  kimono  and  a  pink 
boudoir  cap,  to  receive  this  comforting 
message.  She  wept;  Essie,  who  had  fol- 
lowed in  order  to  miss  nothing,  scowled, 

while  J and  I  wound  our  bath-robes 

tightly  about  us  and  gritted  our  teeth,  in 

an  effort  to  preserve  a  proper  solemnity. 

[6s] 


THE  SMILING  HILI^TOP 

Of  course  we  had  to  let  her  go  back  to  the 
trial,  which  she  did  with  the  dignity  of 
one  engaged  in  affairs  of  state.  She  and 
the  judge  had  a  kind  of  mother's  meeting 
about  George,  and  decided  that  a  touch  of 
the  law  might  be  just  the  steadying  influ- 
ence he  needed. 

The  sentence  was  for  three  months, 
which  suited  me  exactly,  as  I  calculated 
that  his  release  and  our  return  to  town 
would  happily  synchronize.  Mandy  really 
stood  the  gaff  pretty  well  and  returned  to 
her  job,  and  an  armed  neutrality  ensued, 
varied  by  mild  outbreaks.  Essie  was 
afraid  of  Mandy.  She  said  that  she  would 
never  stay  in  the  house  with  her  alone; 
Mandy  wouldn't  stay  in  the  house  alone 
after  dark,  so  it  became  rather  compli- 
cated. We  apparently  had  to  take  them 
or  else  find  them  weeping  on  the  hillside, 
[66] 


THORNS 


when  we  came  back  from  a  picnic.  In  jus- 
tice to  the  darky  heart  I  must  say  that 
when  Billie  was  taken  very  ill  they  buried 
the  hatchet  for  the  time,  and  helped  us  all 
to  pull  him  through. 

The  summer  was  almost  over  when  I 
began  to  suffer  from  a  strange  hallucina- 
tion. I  kept  seeing  a  colored  gentleman 
slipping  around  corners  when  I  approached. 
As  Mandy  was  usually  near  said  corner,  I 
certainly  thought  of  George,  but  calmed 
myself  with  the  reflection  that  he  was  safe 
in  jail.  Not  so.  George  had  experienced 
a  change  of  heart  and  had  behaved  in  so 
exemplary  a  manner  that  his  sentence  had 
been  shortened  two  weeks,  and  what  more 
natural  than  that  he  should  join  his  wife  ? 
It  wasn't  that  I  was  afraid  of  George;  I 
was  afraid  for  George.  I  did  not  want 
him  to  meet  Essie,  for  if  Grandma's  smile 

[67] 


THE  SMILING  HILI^-TOP 

had  cost  him  so  dearly,  I  hated  to  think  of 
the  effect  of  Essie's  black  eyes  and  un- 
broken set  of  white  teeth.  I  needn't  have 
worried,  for  George  was  apparently  "sick 
of  lies  and  women,"  and  never  let  go  his 
hold  on  the  apron-string  to  which  he  was 
in  duty  bound. 

This  summer  I  am  unusually  fortunate, 
owing  to  a  moment  of  clear  vision  that  I 
had  forty-eight  hours  before  leaving  town. 
I  had  a  Christian  Science  cook,  a  real  artist 
if  given  unlimited  materials,  and  she  didn't 
mind  loneliness,  as  she  said  that  God  is 
everywhere;  to  which  I  heartily  agreed.  I 
know  that  He  is  on  this  hill-top.  So  far  so 
good,  but  her  idea  of  obeying  Mr.  Hoover's 
precepts  was  not  to  mention  that  any 
staple  was  out  until  the  last  moment.  At 
about  six  o'clock  she  usually  came  pussy- 
footing to  my  door  in  the  tennis  shoes  she 
[68] 


THORNS 


always  wore,  to  tell  me  that  there  wasn't 
a  potato  in  the  house,  or  any  butter.  Not 
so  bad  in  Pasadena,  with  a  man  to  send  to 
the  store,  but  very  trying  on  a  smiling  hill- 
top, one  mile  from  town,  with  me  the  only 
thing  dimly  suggestive  of  a  chauffeur  on 
the  place.  At  3  a.  m.  I  resolved  to  bounce 
her,  heavenly  disposition  and  all.  I  did, 
and  engaged  a  cateress  for  what  I  should 
call  a  comfortable  salary,  rather  than 
wages.  She  can  get  up  a  very  appetizing 
meal  from  sawdust  and  candle-ends,  when 
necessary,  and  that  is  certainly  what  is 
needed  nowadays.  Also,  she  has  launched 
a  wonderful  counter-offensive  against  the 
ants.  There  was  a  time  when  we  ate  our 
meals  surrounded  by  a  magic  circle  like 
Brunhilde,  but  ours  was  not  of  flames,  but 
of  ant  powder.  Not  that  they  mind  it 
much.  Fm  told  that  they  rather  dislike 
[69] 


THE  SMILING  HILD-TOP 

camphor,  but  do  you  know  the  present 
price  of  that  old  friend  ? 

There  are  singularly  few  pests  or  blights 
in  the  garden  itself.  Bermuda  or  devil 
grass  is  one  of  our  Western  specialties, 
though  it  may  have  invaded  the  East,  too, 
since  we  left.  It  is  an  unusually  husky 
plant,  rooting  itself  afresh  at  every  joint 
with  new  vigor,  and  quite  choking  out  the 
aristocratic  blue  grass  with  which  we 
started  our  lawn.  At  first  you  don't  notice 
it  as  it  sneaks  along  the  ground,  some  time 
above  and  some  time  below,  as  it  feels  dis- 
posed, and  then  suddenly  you  see  its  cob- 
webby outlines  as  plainly  as  the  concealed 
animals  in  a  newspaper  puzzle.  If  you 
begin  to  pull  it  out  you  can't  stop.  It  re- 
minds me  of  the  German  system  of  espio- 
nage, and  that  adds  zest  to  my  weeding. 
The  other  day  I  laboriously  uprooted  an 

[70] 


THORNS 


intricate  network  of  tentacles,  all  leading 
to  one  big  root,  which  I  am  sure  must  have 
been  Wilhelmstrasse  itself.  Being  able  to 
do  so  little  to  help  win  the  war,  this  is  a 
valuable  imaginative  outlet  to  me ! 

Everything  about  the  place,  as  well  as 
the  lawn,  seems  to  get  out  of  order  when 
we  have  tenants.  No  one  Hkes  tenants 
any  more  than  we  like  ''Central."  There 
is  a  prejudice  against  them.  They  do  the 
things  they  ought  not  to  do  and  leave  un- 
done the  things  they  ought  to  do,  and 
there  is  no  health  in  them.  I  have  more 
often  been  one  than  had  one,  and  I  hate  to 
think  of  the  language  that  was  probably 
used  about  us,  though  we  meant  well. 

I  am  not  going  to  tell  all  I  know  about 
tenants  after  all.  I  have  changed  my 
mind.  I  am  also  going  to  draw  a  veil  over 
the  adobe  road  during  the  rains,  because 

[71] 


THE  SMILING  HILL-TOP 

■  '' ....  — 

we  really  do  like  to  rent  the  place  to  help 
pay  for  the  children's  and  the  motor's 
shoes,  and  it  wouldn't  be  good  business. 

The  village  delivery  system  enrages  and 
entertains  me  by  turns.  I  was  frankly 
told  by  the  leading  grocery  store  that  they 
did  not  expect  to  deliver  to  people  who 
had  their  own  motors,  and  when  I  occa- 
sionally insist  on  a  few  necessities  being 
sent  up  to  my  house,  they  arrive  after  dark 
conveyed  by  an  ancient  horse,  as  the  gro- 
cery manager  is  conservative.  A  horse 
doesn't  get  a  puncture  or  break  a  vital  part 
often  (if  he  does,  you  bury  him  and  get 
another)  and  it  is  about  a  toss-up  between 
hay  and  gasoline. 

Every  now  and  then  I  am  marooned  on 

my  hill,  if  the  motor  is  "hors  de  combat," 

and  then  I  get  my  neighbor  to  let  me  join 

her  in  her  morning  marketing  trip,  some- 

[72] 


THORNS 


times  with  disastrous  results.  One  day  the 
boys  and  I  sat  down  to  dinner  with  fine 
sea-air  appetites,  to  be  confronted  by  a 
small,  crushed-looking  fish.  I  sent  out  to 
ask  the  cook  for  more.  She  said  there  was 
no  more,  and  as  no  miracle  was  wrought 
in  our  behalf,  we  filled  up  the  void  with 
mashed  potatoes  as  best  we  could.  Just 
as  the  plates  were  being  removed  the  tele- 
phone rang,  and  my  neighbor's  agitated 
voice  asked  if  I  had  her  cat's  dinner  I 
Light  flooded  in  on  my  understanding. 
We  had  just  eaten  her  cat's  dinner.  She 
went  on  to  say  that  the  fish-man  had 
picked  out  a  little  barracuda  (our  house- 
hold fish  in  California)  from  his  scraps  and 
made  her  a  present  of  it.  I  faintly  asked 
if  she  thought  it  was  a  very  old  one,  visions 
of  ptomaine  poisoning  rising  vividly.  Oh, 
no,  she  said,  "it  wasn't  old  at  all,  he  had 

[73] 


THE  SMILING  HILL-TOP 

merely  stepped  on  it."  My  own  perfectly 
good  dinner  was  at  her  house.  I  told  her 
to  take  off  a  portion  for  her  cat,  and  I 
would  send  the  boys  for  the  rest.  I  heaved 
a  sigh  of  relief — a  fresh  young  fish,  even  if 
crushed,  would  not  have  fatal  results. 

I  will  pass  rapidly  on  to  my  last  thorn, 
which  isn*t  on  the  list  because  Fm  not 
quite  sure  that  it  is  one.  It  is  a  small, 
second-hand,  rather  vicious  little  motor, 
which  I  have  learned  to  drive  as  a  war 
measure.  After  the  first  time  I  ever  tried 
to  turn  it  around,  and  it  flew  at  our  lovely 
rose-garlanded  lattice  fence  at  one  hun- 
dred miles  an  hour,  I  christened  it  "the 
little  fury."  I  missed  the  fence  by  revolv- 
ing the  steering  wheel  as  though  I  were 
playing   roulette.     I   almost  went   round 

twice,  but  J rescued  me  by  kicking  my 

foot  ofF  the  throttle.  Since  then  I  have 
sufficiently  mastered  it  to  drive  to  town 

[74] 


THORNS 


for  the  laundry  and  the  newspaper.  I  am 
Hke  a  child  learning  to  walk  by  having  an 
orange  rolled  in  front  of  it.  I  must  know 
how  far  the  Allies  have  driven  the  Ger- 
mans, so  I  set  my  teeth  and  start  for  town 
in  the  "little  fury."  Every  one  told  me 
that  Fd  have  to  break  something  before  I 
really  got  the  upper  hand.  I  have.  I 
bravely  drove  out  to  a  Japanese  truck  gar- 
den for  vegetables  and  came  to  grief.  One 
of  the  boys  tersely  expressed  it  in  his 
diary,  "Muvs  ran  into  a  Japanese  barn 
and  rooked  the  bumper  !"  Now  that  that 
is  over,  I  begin  to  feel  a  certain  sense  of 
independence  that  is  not  unpleasant.  It 
is  some  time  since  I  have  stalled  the  engine 
or  tried  to  climb  a  hill  with  the  emergency 
brake  set.  The  boys  and  the  "pufflers'' 
are  game  and  keep  me  company;  we  live 
or  die  together. 

After  all,  the  loveliest  rose  in  my  garden, 
[75] 


THE  SMILING  HILL-TOP 

the  Sunburst,  lifts  its  fragrant  flower  of 
creamy  orange  on  a  stalk  bristling  with 
wicked-looking  mahogany  spikes.  If  Vm 
very  careful  about  cutting  it,  I  don't  prick 
my  fingers  and  the  thorns  really  add  to 
the  effect. 


[76] 


ra  I  &f¥$^  TKAIL 


A  FRIEND  of  mine  once  wrote  an  arti- 
cle on  motoring  in  Southern  Cali- 
fornia for  one  of  the  smart  Eastern  maga- 
zines. In  it  she  said  that  often  a  motor 
would  be  followed  by  a  trailer  loaded  with 
a  camp  outfit.  What  was  her  surprise 
and  amusement  to  read  her  own  article 
later,  dressed  for  company,  so  to  speak. 

1 77] 


THE  SMILING  HILL-TOP 

*'A  trailer  goes  ahead  with  the  servants 
and  outfit,  so  that  when  the  motoring 
party  arrives  on  the  scene  all  is  in  readi- 
ness for  their  comfort."  Great  care  must 
be  taken  that  the  sensibilities  of  the  elect 
should  not  be  offended  by  the  horrid 
thought  that  ladies  and  gentlemen  actually 
do  make  their  own  camp  at  times  !  So  the 
trailer  has  to  go  ahead,  and  that  is  just 
where  the  lure  and  magic  of  Southern 
California  slips  through  the  fingers. 

Most  of  us  have  a  few  drops,  at  least,  of 
gypsy  blood  in  us,  and  in  this  land  of  sun- 
shine and  the  open  road  we  all  become 
vagabonds  as  far  as  our  conventional  up- 
bringing will  let  us.  When  you  know  that 
it  won't  rain  from  May  to  October,  and 
the  country  is  full  of  the  most  lovely  and 
picturesque  spots,  how  can  you  help  at 
least  picnicking  whenever  you  can  .? 

[  78  ] 


THE  GYPSY  TRAIL 


Trains  are  becoming  as  obsolete  in  our 
family  as  the  horse.  We  wish  to  take  a 
trip:  out  purrs  the  motor;  in  goes  the 
family  lunch-box,  a  thermos  bottle,  and 
a  motor-case  of  indispensables,  and  we  are 
off.  No  fuss  about  missing  the  train,  no 
baggage,  no  tickets,  no  cinders — just  the 
open  road. 

I  had  heard  that  every  one  deteriorated 
in  Southern  CaHfornia,  and  after  the  first 
year  I  began  earnestly  searching  my  soul 
for  signs  of  slackening.  Perhaps  my  soul 
is  naturally  easy-going,  for  somehow  I 
can't  feel  that  the  things  we  let  slip  matter 
so  greatly. 

This  much  I  will  admit.  There  is  no 
deadher  drug  habit  than  fresh  air!  The 
first  summer  on  our  Smiling  Hill-Top  kind 
ladies  used  to  ask  me  to  tea-parties  and 
card-parties,  but  I  could  never  come  in- 

[79] 


THE  SMILING  HILL-TOP 

doors  long  enough  to  be  anything  but  a 
trial  to  my  partners  at  bridge,  so  now  I 
don't  even  make  believe  Fm  a  polite  mem- 
ber of  society.  Of  course,  there  are  people 
who  carry  it  further  than  I  do,  and  can*t 
be  quite  happy  except  in  their  bathing- 
suits.  Fm  not  as  bad  as  that.  I  can  still 
enjoy  the  sea  breezes  and  the  colors  and 
the  sound  of  the  waves  with  my  clothes 
on.  I  don't  even  wear  my  bathing-suit  to 
market,  which  is  one  of  the  customs  of  the 
place.  It  is  a  picturesque  little  village; 
half  the  houses  are  mere  shacks,  a  kind  of 
compromise  between  dwelling  and  bath- 
houses, everyone  being  much  too  thrifty 
to  pay  money  to  the  Casino  when  they 
can  drip  freely  on  their  own  sitting-room 
floor,  without  the  least  damage  to  the  fur- 
nishings. Life  for  many  consists  largely 
of  a  prolonged  bath  and  bask  on  the  beach, 

[80] 


THE  GYPSY  TRAIL 


with  dinner  at  a  cafeteria  and  a  cold  bite 
for  supper  at  home  or  on  the  rocks.  It  is 
surely  an  easy  life  and  yet  a  great  deal  of 
earnest  effort  and  strenuous  thinking  goes 
on,  too,  women's  clubs,  even  an  "open 
forum,"  and  there  are  many  delightful 
people  who  live  there  all  the  year  for  the 
sake  of  the  perfect  climate.  Also,  there 
are  a  few  charming  houses  perched  on  the 
cliffs,  most  suggestive  of  Sorrento  and 
Amalfi.  An  incident  J is  fond  of  tell- 
ing gives  the  combined  interests  of  the 
place.  He  was  on  his  way  to  the  post- 
office  when  he  met  two  women  in  very 
scanty  jersey  bathing-suits  with  legs  bare, 
wearing,  to  be  sure,  law-fulfilling  mackin- 
toshes, but  which,  being  unbuttoned, 
flapped  so  in  the  breeze  that  they  were 
only  a  technical  covering.  The  ladies 
were  in  earnest  conversation  as  he  passed. 
[81] 


THE  SMILING  HILL-TOP 

J heard  one  say,  "I  grant  all  you  say 

about  the  charm  of  his  style,  but  I  con- 
sider his  writing  very  superficial!" 

It  is  a  wonderful  life  for  small  boys. 
My  sons  are  the  loveliest  shades  of  brown 
with  cheeks  of  red,  and  in  faded  khaki  and 
bare  legs  are  as  good  an  example  of  pro- 
tective coloring  on  the  hillside  as  any  zebra 
in  a  jungle.  Quite  naturally  they  view 
September  and  the  long  stockings  of  the 
city  with  dislike. 

There  is  a  place  on  the  beach  by  the 
coast  road  between  Pasadena  and  San 
Diego  where  we  always  have  lunch  on  our 
journeys  to  and  from  town.  Just  after  you 
leave  the  picturesque  ruins  of  the  Capis- 
trano  Mission  in  its  sheltered  valley,  you 
come  out  suddenly  on  the  ocean,  and  the 
road  runs  by  the  sand  for  miles.  With  a 
salt  breeze  blowing  in  your  face  you  can't 
resist  the  lunch  box  long.  With  a  stuffed 
[82I 


THE  GYPSY  TRAIL 


egg  in  one  hand  and  a  sandwich  in  the 
other,  Joedy,  aged  eight,  observed  on  our 
last  trip  south,  "This  is  the  bright  side  of 
living."     I  agree  with  him. 

One  late  afternoon  a  friend  of  ours  was 
driving  alone  and  offered  a  lift  to  two 
young  men  who  were  swinging  along  on 
foot.  "Your  price.?"  they  asked.  "A 
smile  and  a  song,"  was  the  reply.  So  in 
they  got,  and  those  last  fifty  miles  were 
gay.  That  is  the  sort  of  thing  which  fits 
so  perfectly  into  the  atmosphere  of  this 
land.  Perhaps  it  is  the  orange  blossoms, 
perhaps  it  is  that  we  have  extra-sized 
moons,  perhaps  it  is  the  old  Spanish  charm 
still  lingering.     All  I  know  is  that  it  is  a 

land  of  glamour  and  romance.     J said 

he  was  going  to  import  a  pair  of  nightin- 
gales. I  said  that  if  he  did  he*d  have  a 
lot  to  answer  for. 

Places  are  as  different  as  people.     The 

[83] 


THE  SMILING  HILL-TOP 

East,  and  by  that  I  mean  the  country  east 
of  the  Alleghanies  and  not  Iowa  and  Kan- 
sas, which  are  sometimes  so  described  out 
here,  has  reached  years  of  discretion  and 
is  set  in  its  way.  CaHfornia  has  tempera- 
ment, and  it  is  still  very  young  and  enthu- 
siastic and  is  having  a  lot  of  fun  "growing 
up/*  I  love  the  stone  walls,  huckleberry 
pies,  and  johnny  cakes  of  Rhode  Island, 
and  I  love  the  associations  of  my  childhood 
and  my  family  tree,  but  there  is  something 
in  the  air  of  this  part  of  the  world  that 
enchants  me.  It  is  a  certain  "Why  not  ?" 
that  leads  me  into  all  sorts  of  delight- 
ful experiences.  Conventionality  does  not 
hold  us  as  tightly  as  it  does  in  the  East, 
and  a  certain  tempting  feeling  of  unlim- 
ited possibiHties  in  life  makes  waking  up 
in  the  morning  a  small  adventure  in  itself. 
It  isn't  necessary  to  point  out  the  dangers 
of  an  unlimited  "Why  not?"  cult — they 

[84] 


THE  GYPSY  TRAIL 


are  too  obvious.  "Why  not?"  is  a  ques- 
tion that  one's  imagination  asks,  and 
imagination  is  one  of  the  best  spurs  to 
action.  I  will  give  an  example  of  what  I 
mean :  When  war  was  declared  J sug- 
gested putting  contribution  boxes  with  red 
crosses  on  the  collars  of  "Rags"  and 
"Tags,"  the  boys'  twin  Yorkshire  ter- 
riers, and  coaxing  them  to  sit  up  on  the 
back  of  the  motor.  I  never  had  begged  on 
a  street  corner,  but  I  thought  at  once, 
"Why  not  ?"  The  result  was  much  money 
for  the  Red  Cross,  an  increased  knowledge 
of  human  nature  for  me,  as  well  as  some 
dehghtful  new  friends.  I  should  never 
have  had  the  courage  to  try  it  in  New  York 
— let  us  say;  I  should  have  been  afraid  I'd 
be  arrested. 

At  first  to  an  Easterner  the  summer 
landscape  seems  dry  and  dusty,  but  after 
living  here  one  grows  to  love  the  peculiar 
[8s] 


THE  SMILING  HILL-TOP 

soft  tones  of  tan  and  bisque,  with  bright 
shades  of  ice  plant  for  color,  and  by  the 
sea  the  wonderful  blues  and  greens  of  the 
water.  No  one  can  do  justice  to  the  glory 
of  that.  Sky-blue,  sea-blue,  the  shimmer 
of  peacocks'  tails  and  the  calm  of  that  blue 
Italian  painters  use  for  the  robes  of  their 
madonnas,  ever  blend  and  ever  change. 
Trees  there  are  few,  the  graceful  silhouette 
of  a  eucalyptus  against  a  golden  sky,  oc- 
casional clumps  of  live  oaks,  and  on  the 
coast  road  to  San  Diego  the  Torry  pines, 
relics  of  a  bygone  age,  growing  but  one 
other  place  in  the  world,  and  more  pic- 
turesque than  any  tree  I  ever  saw.  One 
swaying  over  a  canyon  is  the  photograph- 
er's joy.  It  has  been  posing  for  hundreds 
of  years  and  will  still  for  centuries  more,  I 
have  no  doubt. 

Were  I  trying  to  write  a  sort  of  sugar- 
[86] 


THE  GYPSY  TRAIL 


coated  guide-book,  I  could  make  the 
reader's  mouth  water,  just  as  the  menu  of 
a  Parisian  restaurant  does.  The  canyons 
through  which  we  have  wandered,  the  hills 
we  have  circled,  Grossmont — that  island 
in  the  air — Point  Loma,  the  southern  tip 
of  the  United  States,  now,  alas,  closed  on 
account  of  the  war  (Fort  Rosecrans  is  near 
its  point),  and  further  north  the  mountains 
and  orange  groves — snow-capped  Sierras 
looming  above  orchards  of  blooming 
peach-trees ! 

Even  the  names  add  to  the  fascination, 
the  Cuyamaca  Mountains  meaning  the 
hills  of  the  brave  one;  Sierra  Madre,  the 
mother  mountains;  even  Tia  Juana  is 
euphonious,  if  you  don't  stop  to  translate 
it  into  the  plebeian  "Aunt  Jane,"  and  no 
names  could  be  as  lovely  as  the  places 
themselves.     So  much  beauty  rather  goes 

[87] 


THE  SMILING  HILL-TOP 

to  one's  head.  For  years  in  the  East  we 
had  lived  in  rented  houses,  ugly  rented 
houses,  always  near  the  station,  so  that 

J could  catch  the  7.59  or  the  8.17,  on 

foot.  To  find  ourselves  on  a  smiling  hill- 
top— our  own  hill-top,  with  "magic  case- 
ments opening  on  the  foam" — seemed  like 
a  dream.  After  three  years  it  still  seems 
too  good  to  be  true. 

They  say  that  if  you  spend  a  year  in 
Southern  California  you  will  never  be  able 
to  leave  it.  I  don't  know.  We  haven't 
tried.  The  only  possible  reason  for  going 
back  would  be  that  you  aren't  in  the  stir- 
ring heart  of  things  here  as  you  are  in  New 
York,  and  the  Times  is  five  days  old  when 
you  get  it.  Your  friends — they  all  come 
to  you  if  you  just  wait  a  little.  What 
amazes  them  always  is  to  find  that  South- 
ern California  has  the  most  perfect  summer 
[88] 


THE  GYPSY  TRAIL 


climate  in  the  world,  if  you  keep  near  the 
sea.  No  rain — many  are  the  umbrellas  I 
have  gently  extracted  from  the  reluctant 
hands  of  doubting  visitors;  no  heat  such  as 
we  know  it  in  the  East.  We  have  an  out- 
of-door  dining-room,  and  it  is  only  two  or 
three  times  in  summer  that  it  is  warm 
enough  to  have  our  meals  there.  In  the 
cities  or  the  "back  country"  it  is  different. 
I  have  felt  heat  in  Pasadena  that  made  me 
feel  in  the  same  class  with  Shadrach,  Me- 
shach  and  Abednego,  but  never  by  the  sea. 
One  result  of  all  this  fresh  air  is  that  we 
won*t  even  go  indoors  to  be  amused. 
Hence  the  outdoor  theatre.  Why  go  to  a 
play  when  it's  so  lovely  outside  ?  But  to 
go  to  a  play  out-of-doors  in  an  enchanting 
Greek  theatre  with  a  real  moon  rising 
above  it — that's  another  matter.  I  shall 
never  forget  "Midsummer  Night's  Dream  " 

[89] 


THE  SMILING  HILL-TOP 

as  given  by  the .  Theosophical  Society 
at  Point  Loma.  Strolling  through  the 
grounds  with  the  mauve  and  amber  domes 
of  their  temples  dimly  lighted  I  found  my- 
self murmuring:  "In  Xanadu  did  Kubla 
Khan  a  stately  pleasure  dome  decree."  In 
a  canyon  by  the  sea  we  found  a  theatre. 
The  setting  was  perfect  and  the  perform- 
ance was  worthy  of  it.  Never  have  I  seen 
that  play  so  beautifully  given,  so  artisti- 
cally set  and  delightfully  acted,  though  the 
parts  were  taken  by  students  in  the  Theo- 
sophical School.  After  the  last  adorable 
Httle  fairy  had  toddled  off — I  hope  to  bed 
— we  heard  a  youth  behind  us  observe, 
"These  nuts  sure  can  give  a  play."  We 
echoed  his  sentiments. 

I    should   make   one   exception   to   my 
statement  that  people  won't  go  indoors  to 
be  amused.     They  go  to  the  "movies" — 
[90] 


THE  GYPSY  TRAIL 


I  think  they  would  risk  their  lives  to  see  a 
new  film  almost  as  recklessly  as  the  actors 
who  make  them.  The  most  interesting 
part  of  the  moving-picture  business  is  out- 
of-doors,  however.  You  are  walking  down 
the  street  and  notice  an  excitement  ahead. 
Douglas  Fairbanks  is  doing  a  little  tight- 
rope walking  on  the  telegraph  wires.  A 
little  farther  on  a  large  crowd  indicates 
further  thrills.  Presently  there  is  a  splash 
and  Charley  Chaplin  has  disappeared  into 
a  fountain  with  two  policemen  in  pursuit. 
Once  while  we  were  motoring  we  came  to 
a  disused  railway  spur,  and  were  surprised 
to  find  a  large  and  fussy  engine  getting  up 
steam  while  a  crowd  blocked  the  road  for 
some  distance.  A  lady  in  pink  satin  was 
chained  to  the  rails — placed  there  by  the 
villain,  who  was  smoking  cigarettes  in  the 
offing,  waiting  for  his  next  cue.     The  lady 

[91] 


THE  SMILING  HILI^TOP 

in  pink  satin  had  made  a  little  dugout  for 
herself  under  the  track,  and  as  the  loco- 
motive thundered  up  she  was  to  slip  under- 
neath— a  job  that  the  mines  of  Golconda 
would  not  have  tempted  me  to  try.  Mov- 
ing-picture actors  have  a  very  high  order 
of  courage.  We  could  not  stay  for  the 
denouement,  as  we  had  a  nervous  old  lady 
with  us,  who  firmly  declined  to  witness  any 
such  hair-raising  spectacle.  I  looked  in 
the  paper  next  morning  for  railway  acci- 
dents to  pink  ladies,  but  could  find  nothing, 
so  she  probably  pulled  it  off  successfully. 
Every  year  new  theatres  are  built.  We 
have  seen  Ruth  St.  Denis  at  the  Organ 
Pavilion  of  the  San  Diego  Exposition,  and 
Julius  Caesar  with  an  all-star  cast  in  the 
hills  back  of  Hollywood,  where  the  space 
was  unlimited,  and  Caesar's  triumph  in- 
cluded elephants  and  other  beasts,  loaned 

[92] 


THE  GYPSY  TRAIL 


by  the  "movies,"  and  Brutus'  camp 
spread  over  the  hillside  as  it  might  actually 
have  done  long  ago.  There  is  a  place  in 
the  back  country  near  Escondido,  where 
at  the  time  of  the  harvest  moon  an  Indian 
play  with  music  is  given  every  year.  At 
Easter  thousands  of  people  go  up  Mount 
Rubidoux,  near  Riverside,  for  the  sunrise 
service.  Some  celebrated  singer  usually 
takes  part  and  it  is  very  lovely — quite  un- 
like anything  else. 

So  we  have  come  to  belong  to  what  the 
French  would  call  the  school  of  "pleine 
air."  I  once  knew  an  adorable  little  boy 
who  expressed  it  better  than  I  can: 

"Sun  callin*  me,  sky  callin*  me, 
Comin*  sun — comin*  sky." 


[93 


ML  ADVEipiil  llt^QilTllDl 

MY  windows  were  all  wide  open  one 
lovely  April  day,  the  loveliest  time 
of  all  the  year  in  Southern  California,  fill- 
ing the  house  with  the  sweetness  of  wistaria 
and  orange  blossoms,  but  also,  truth  com- 
pels me  to  add,  with  so  many  noises  of  such 
excruciating  kinds  that  I  followed  Ulysses' 
well-known  plan  and  then  tried  to  find 
quiet  for  my  siesta  in  the  back  spare-room. 
The  worst  of  this  house  is  that  it  really  has 
no  back — it  has  various  fronts,  like  the 
war.  The  spinster  next  door  but  one  has 
a  parrot — a  cynical,  tired  parrot,  but  still 
fond  of  the  sound  of  his  own  voice.     The 

[94] 


AN  ADVENTURE  IN  SOLITUDE 

lady  across  the  street  is  raising  Pekinese 
puppies,  who  apparently  bitterly  regret 
being  born  outside  of  Pekin.  She  puts 
them  in  baskets  on  the  roof  in  the  sun  and 
lets  them  cry  it  out,  in  that  hard-hearted 
modern  method  appHed  to  babies. 

A  sight-seeing  car  had  paused  while  the 
gentleman  with  the  megaphone  explained 
to  a  few  late  tourists  the  Arroyo  Seco,  that 
great  river-bed  with  only  a  trickle  of  water 
at  the  bottom,  on  whose  brink  our  house 
perches.  At  home  two  plumbers  were 
playfully  tossing  bricks  about  our  court- 
yard in  a  half-hearted  endeavor  to  find  out 
why  our  cellar  was  flooded.  Hence  the 
back  bedroom.  No  amount  of  cotton 
wool  in  one's  ears,  however,  could  camou- 
flage a  telephone  bell. 

"The  Red  Cross  Executive  Committee 
will  meet  at  ten  on  Wednesday." 
[9S] 


THE  SMILING  HILL-TOP 

A  short  interval  followed.     "Will  Mr. 

S make   a   *  four-minute'   speech   on 

Friday  at  the  Strand  Theatre  for  the 
Liberty  Bond  Campaign?" 

Another  interval  during  which  I  began 

to  feel  drowsy.     "Will  Mr.  S say  a 

few  words  of  appreciation  and  present  a 
wrist  watch  to  the  Chapter  Secretary  just 
starting  for  France  ? "  etc.  Just  here  I 
made  a  resolve.  Escape  I  would,  for  one 
week,  to  my  lovely  hill-top  by  the  sea,  and 

leave  J ,  the  two  boys,  the  two  dogs, 

the  two  white  mice,  the  Red  Cross,  the 
Red  Star,  Food  Conservation  and  Liberty 
Bonds  to  manage  beautifully  without  me. 
I  even  had  the  reckless  idea  of  trying  to 
forget  that  there  was  a  war  going  on !  I 
was  furnished  with  a  perfectly  good  ex- 
cuse; we  had  rented  "The  Smiling  Hill- 
Top  "  for  two  months,  and  it  must  be  put 

[96] 


AN  ADVENTURE  IN  SOLITUDE 

in  order.  Hence  my  "Adventure  in  Soli- 
tude." 

Everything  is  called  an  adventure  now- 
adays, and  to  me  it  was  a  most  exciting  one, 
as  I  had  not  gone  forth  independently  for 
many  years.  One  chauffeur,  one  smiling 
Helen  to  clean  house  for  the  tenants  and 
cook  for  me,  my  worst  clothes  and  my  best 
picnic  lunch  went  into  the  motor,  and  I 
followed.  I  think  my  family  expected  me 
back  next  day,  when  I  bade  them  a  loving 
farewell.  Not  1 1  My  spirit  was  craving 
silence.  I  wanted  not  to  curl  my  hair  or 
be  neat  or  polite  or  a  good  mother,  or  any 
of  the  things  I  usually  try  to  be,  for  just 
one  week.  Longer,  and  I  would  be  lonely 
and  homesick. 

It  was  a  lovely  day.  The  coast  road  to 
San  Diego  runs  through  orange  groves  for 
miles,  and  the  perfume  of  the  blossoms 

[97] 


THE  SMILING  HILL-TOP 

hung  about  us  till  we  came  to  the  sea, 
where  a  salt  breeze  blew  away  the  heavy 
sweetness.  I  lunched  on  the  sand  and 
watched  the  waves  for  an  hour.  There,  at 
least,  are  endless  re-enforcements  !  As  fast 
as  the  front  ranks  break  more  come  always 
to  fill  their  places. 

I  felt  no  hurry,  as  the  Smiling  Hill-Top 
is  some  fifteen  miles  nearer  Pasadena  than 
San  Diego — an  easy  day's  run — and  I  had 
no  engagements,  but  at  last  my  impatience 
to  see  how  much  our  garden  had  grown 
started  me  once  more  on  my  way,  and  we 
arrived  at  our  wicket  gate  in  the  late  after- 
noon. There  were  twenty-seven  keys  on 
the  ring  the  real-estate  agent  gave  me — 
twenty  more  than  caused  so  much  trouble 
at  Baldpate — but  none  fitted,  so  I  had  the 
chauffeur  lift  the  gate  bodily  from  its 
hinges  and  I  was  at  home ! 

[98] 


AN  ADVENTURE  IN  SOLITUDE 

In  California  things  grow  riotously. 
Grandparents  who  haven't  seen  their 
grandsons  for  years,  and  find  that  they 
have  shot  up  from  toddhng  babies  to  tall 
youths,  must  feel  as  I  did  when  I  saw  the 
vines  and  shrubs,  especially  the  banana 
trees  planted  only  six  months  before! 
The  lawn  over  which  I  had  positively  wept 
lay  innocent  and  green — almost  English  in 
its  freshness.  The  patio  was  entrancing 
with  blooming  vines.  The  streptasolen, 
which  has  no  "Httle  name,"  as  the  French 
say,  was  like  a  cascade  of  flame  over  one 
end  of  the  wall.  The  place  was  ablaze 
with  it.  The  three  goldfish  in  the  foun- 
tain seemed  as  calm  as  ever,  and  apparently 
have  solved  the  present  problem  of  the  high 
cost  of  living,  for  they  don't  have  to  be 
fed  at  all.  The  three  had  picked  up  what 
they  needed  without  human  aid.     I  really 

[99] 


THE  SMILING  HILL-TOP 

felt  like  patting  them  on  the  head,  but 
that  being  out  of  the  question,  I  was 
moved  to  rhyme: 

"I  wish  I  were  a  goldfish, 
All  In  a  little  bowl; 
I  wouldn't  worry  whether 
I  really  had  a  soul. 

I'd  glide  about  through  sun  and  shade 
And  snatch  up  little  gnats, 
My  heaven  would  be  summer 
My  hell — ^well,  call  it  cats  I" 


All  this  time  the  chauffeur  had  been 
wrestling  with  the  key  ring,  and  finally 
had  our  bare  necessities  in  the  way  of  doors 
open.  I  had  telegraphed  our  agent  that  I 
was  coming  only  long  enough  before  for 
the  house  to  have  what  is  vulgarly  known 
as  "a  Hck  and  a  promise,"  but  it  looked 
just  as  comfortable  and  pleasant  as  I  knew 
that  it  would,  and  the  terrace — no  need  to 
[loo] 


AN  ADVENTURE  IN  SOLITUDE 

bother  about  that.    The  south  wind  does 
the  housework  there. 

That  night  I  went  to  sleep  between 
sheets  fragrant  with  lavender  from  my  own 
garden,  while  the  ocean  boomed  gently  on 
the  beach  below  the  hill.  In  the  week  that 
followed  I  abolished  a  number  of  things. 
First  of  all,  meal  hours.  I  had  my  meals 
when  I  felt  like  it;  in  fact,  I  didn't  wind  the 
clock  till  I  was  leaving.  I  only  did  it  then 
on  account  of  the  tenants,  as  some  people 
find  the  ticking  of  a  clock  and  the  chirping 
of  a  cricket  pleasant  and  cosy  sounds.  I 
don't.  Then  I  cut  out  the  usual  items 
from  my  bill  of  fare,  and  lived  on  young 
peas,  asparagus,  eggs,  milk,  and  fruit,  with 
just  a  little  bread  and  butter — not  enough 
to  agitate  Mr.  Hoover.  I  never  had  had 
as  much  asparagus  as  I  really  wanted  be- 
fore. I  wore  an  old  smock  and  a  disrepu- 
[lOl] 


c,  c    c     t , 


titE  SMILING  HILD-TOP 

table  hat,  and  I  pruned  and  dug  in  my  gar- 
den till  I  was  tired,  and  then  I  lay  on  the 
terrace  and  watched  the  waves  endlessly 
gather  and  gHde  and  spread.  Counting 
sheep  jumping  over  a  wall  is  nothing  to 
compare  with  waves  for  soothing  rasped 
nerves. 

My  first  solitary  day  was  so  clear  that 
the  Pasadena  Mountains,  as  we  call  that 
part  of  the  Sierra  Madre,  rose  soft  over  the 
water  on  the  far  horizon,  so  that  I  couldn't 
feel  lonely  with  home  in  sight.  Long  un- 
used muscles  expostulated  with  me,  but 
smoothed-out  nerves  more  than  balanced 
their  twinges.  Of  course  I  couldn't  forget 
the  war.  Who  could,  especially  with 
flocks  of  aeroplanes  flying  over  me  as  I  lay 
on  a  chaise  longue  on  the  terrace,  listening 
to  the  big  guns  of  Camp  Kearny  roaring 
behind  the  hills;  but  it  no  longer  gave  me 
[102] 


AN  ADVENTURE  IN  SOLITUDE 


the  sensation  of  sand-paper  in  my  feelings. 
I  thought  about  it  all  more  calmly  and 
realized  a  little  of  what  it  is  doing  to  us 
Americans — to  our  souls — that  is  worth  the 
price;  and  in  addition,  how  much  it  is 
teaching  us  of  economy,  conservation,  and 
efficiency,  as  well  as  more  spiritual  things. 

It  has  also  brought  home  to  me  the 
beauty  of  throwing  away.  In  a  fever  of 
enthusiasm  to  make  every  outgrown  union 
suit  and  superfluous  berry  spoon  tell,  I 
have  ransacked  my  house  from  garret  to 
cellar,  and  I  bless  the  Belgians,  Servians, 
and  Armenians,  the  Poles  and  the  French 
orphans  for  ridding  me  of  a  suffocating 
mass  of  things  that  I  didn't  use,  and  yet 
felt  obliged  to  keep. 

My  wardrobe  is  now  the  irreducible 
minimum,  the  French  Relief  has  the  rest, 
and  at  last  I  have  more  than  enough  hang- 
[  103  ] 


THE  SMILING  HILI^TOP 

ers  in  my  closet  to  support  my  frocks. 
The  shoes  that  pinched  but  looked  so  smart 
that  they  kept  tempting  me  into  one  more 
trial  have  gone  to  the  Red  Cross  Shop. 
No  more  concerts  will  be  ruined  by  them. 
The  hat  that  made  me  look  ten  years  older 
than  I  like  .to  think  I  do,  accompanied 
them.  It  was  a  good  hat,  almost  new,  and 
it  cost — more  than  I  pay  for  hats  now- 
adays. I  do  not  need  to  wear  it  out.  My 
large  silver  tea-pot  given  me  by  my  maid 
of  honor  did  good  work  for  the  Belgians — 
I  hope  if  she  ever  finds  out  about  its  fate 
that  she  will  be  glad  that  it  is  now  warm 
stockings  for  many  thin  little  Belgian  legs. 
Nora,  from  Ireland,  viewed  its  departure 
with  satisfaction — it  made  one  less  thing 
to  polish.  Many  odds  and  ends  of  silver 
followed,  and  were  put  into  the  melting- 
pot,  being  too  homely  to  survive — I'm  sav- 
[104] 


AN  ADVENTURE  IN  SOLITUDE 

ing  enough  for  heirlooms  for  my  grand- 
children, of  course.  One  must  not  allow 
sentiment  to  go  by  the  board;  we  need  it 
especially  now  that  we  have  lost  such 
quantities  of  it  out  of  the  world.  So  much 
was  "made  in  Germany,"  that  old  Ger- 
many of  the  fairy  tales  and  Christmas 
trees  which  seems  to  be  gone  forever. 

I  need  not  go  on  enumerating  my  activi- 
ties. Every  one  has  been  doing  the  same 
thing,  and  in  all  probability  is  now  enjoy- 
ing the  same  sense  of  orderliness  and  free- 
dom that  I  feel.  Even  the  children  have 
caught  the  spirit.  I  was  just  leaving  my 
house  the  other  day  when  a  palatial  auto- 
mobile stopped  at  the  gate  and  a  very 
perfect  chauffeur  alighted  and  touched  his 
cap.  "Madam,"  he  said,  "I  have  come 
for  a  case  of  empty  bottles  that  Master 
John  says  your  little  boy  promised  him  for 
[los] 


THE  SMILING  HILL-TOP 

the  Red  Cross."  There  was  a  trace  of 
embarrassment  in  his  manner,  but  there 
was  none  in  mine  as  I  led  him  to  the  cellar 
and  watched  with  satisfaction  while  he 
clasped  a  cobwebby  box  of — dare  I  whisper 
it  ? — empty  beer  bottles  to  his  immaculate 
chest  and  eventually  stowed  it  in  the  ex- 
quisite interior  of  the  limousine.  How 
wonderful  of  the  Red  Cross  to  want  my 
bottles,  and  how  intelligent  of  my  "little 
boy"  to  arrange  the  matter  so  pleasantly ! 
To  do  away  with  the  needless  accumula- 
tions of  life,  or  better  still,  not  to  let  them 
accumulate,  what  a  comfort  that  would 
be !  Letters  ?  The  fire  as  rapidly  as  pos- 
sible !  No  one  ought  to  have  a  good  time 
reading  over  old  letters — there's  always  a 
tinge  of  sadness  about  them,  and  it's  mor- 
bid to  conserve  sadness,  added  to  which, 
in  the  remote  contingency  of  one's  becom- 
[io6] 


AN  ADVENTURE  IN  SOLITUDE 

ing  famous,  some  vandalish  relative  always 
publishes  the  ones  that  are  most  sacred. 

J has  the  pigeon-hole   habit.     He 

hates  to  see  anything  sink  into  the  abyss 
of  the  waste-basket,  but  I  am  training  him 
to  throw  away  something  every  morning 
before  breakfast.  After  a  while  he'll  get 
so  that  he  can  dispose  of  several  things  at 
once,  and  the  time  may  come  when  I'll 
have  to  look  over  the  rubbish  to  be  sure 
that  nothing  valuable  has  gone,  because 
throwing  away  is  just  as  insidious  a  habit 
as  any  other. 

If  only  one  could  pile  old  bills  on  top  of 
the  old  letters,  what  a  glorious  bonfire 
that  would  make !  But  that  will  have  to 
wait  until  the  millennium;  as  things  are 
now,  it  would  mean  paying  twice  for  the 
motor  fender  of  last  year,  and  never  feeling 
sure  of  your  relations  with  the  butcher. 

[107] 


THE  SMILING  HILI^TOP 

It  isn't  only  things  that  I  am  disposing 
of.  IVe  rid  myself  of  a  lot  of  useless  ideas. 
We  don't  have  to  live  in  any  special  way. 
It  isn't  necessary  to  have  meat  twice  a 
day,  and  there  is  no  law  about  chicken  for 
Sunday  dinner.  Butter  does  not  come 
like  the  air  we  breathe.  Numerous  courses 
aren't  necessary  even  for  guests.  New 
clothes  aren't  essential  unless  your  old  ones 
are  worn  out — and  so  on. 

And  so  I'm  stepping  forth  on  a  road 
leading,  even  the  graybeards  can't  say 
where,  with  surprises  behind  every  hedge 
and  round  every  corner.  There  hasn't 
been  so  thrillingly  interesting  an  age  to  be 
alive  since  that  remote  time  when  the 
Creation  was  going  on.  Except  for  mo- 
ments of  tired  Serves,  like  this,  it  is  very 
stimulating,  and  I  find  myself  stepping  out 
much  more  briskly  since  I  threw  my  extra 
[  io8  ] 


AN  ADVENTURE  IN  SOLITUDE 

wraps  and  bundles  beside  the  road.  Here 
on  my  hill-top  I  have  even  enjoyed  a  little 
of  that  charm  of  unencumberedness  that 
all  vagabonds  know — and  later  if  I  come  to 
some  steep  stretches  I  shall  be  more  likely 
to  make  the  top,  for  Fm  resolved  to 
"travel  light." 

There  is  usually  one  serpent  in  Eden,  if 
it  is  only  a  garter  snake.  Ours  was  a  frog 
in  the  fountain.  He  had  a  volume  of  sound 
equal  to  Edouard  de  Reske  in  his  prime.  I 
set  the  chauffeur  the  task  of  catching  him, 
but  after  emptying  out  all  the  water  one 
little  half-inch  frog  skipped  off,  and  John 
assured  me  that  he  could  never  be  the 
offender.  But  he  was  "Edouard'*  in  spite 
of  appearances,  for  he  returned  at  dusk  and 
took  up  the  refrain  just  where  he  had  left 
off.  I  decided  to  hunt  him  myself.  It 
was  like  the  game  of  "magic  music"  that 
[109] 


THE  SMILING  HILL-TOP 

we  used  to  play  as  children:  loud  and  you 
are  "warm";  soft  and  you  are  far  away. 
I  never  caught  him.  He  was  ready  to 
greet  the  tenants  instead  of  the  cosy 
cricket,  and  may  have  been  the  reason 
why  they  suddenly  departed  after  only  a 
three  weeks'  stay,  but  as  it  was  a  foggy 
May,  as  it  sometimes  is  on  this  coast,  that 

is  an  open  question.    J tersely  put  it, 

"Frog  or  fog?" 

The  smiling  Helen  smiled  more  beam- 
ingly every  day,  but  the  chauffeur  hated 
it.  He  was  a  city  product  and  looked  as 
much  at  home  on  that  hill-top  as  a  dancing- 
master  in  a  hay-field.  He  smoked  cigar- 
ettes and  read  the  sporting  page  of  the 
paper  in  the  garage,  where  gasoline  rather 
deadened  the  country  smells  of  flowers  and 
hay,  and  tried  to  forget  his  degrading  sur- 
roundings, but  he  was  overjoyed  when  the 
[no] 


AN  ADVENTURE  IN  SOLITUDE 

day  to  start  for  home  arrived.  I  did  not 
share  his  feelings,  and  yet  I  was  ready  to 
go.  It  had  been  a  great  success,  and  the 
only  time  I  had  felt  lonely  was  in  a  crowded 

restaurant  in  San  Diego,  where  J and 

I  had  had  many  jolly  times  in  past  sum- 
mers. On  the  Smiling  Hill-Top  who  could 
be  lonely  with  the  ever-changing  sea  and 
sky  and  sunsets.  I  dare  not  describe  the 
picture,  as  I  don't  wish  to  be  put  down  as 
mad  or  a  cubist.  Scent  of  the  honeysuckle, 
the  flutter  of  the  breeze,  the  song  of  pink- 
breasted  linnets  and  their  tiny  splashings 
in  the  birds'  pool  outside  my  sleeping- 
porch,  the  velvet  of  the  sky  at  night,  with 
its  stars  and  the  motor  lights  on  the  high- 
way like  more  stars  below — how  I  love  it 
all !  I  was  taking  enough  of  it  home  with 
me,  I  hoped,  to  last  through  some  strenu- 
ous  weeks    in    Pasadena,    until    I    could 

[III] 


THE  SMILING  HILIr-TOP 

come  back  for  the  summer,  bringing  my 
family. 

Much  bustling  about  on  the  part  of  the 
smiling  Helen  and  me,  much  locking  of 
gates  and  doors  by  the  bored  chauffeur, 
and  we  were  off  for  home !  After  all  is  said 
and  done,  "home  is  where  the  heart  is," 
irrespective  of  the  view. 

The  first  part  of  the  way  we  made  good 
time,  but  just  out  of  one  of  the  small  sea- 
side towns  something  vital  snapped  in  the 
motor's  insides.  It  happened  on  a  bridge 
at  the  foot  of  a  hill,  and  we  were  very  lucky 
to  escape  an  accident.  I  will  say  for  the 
chauffeur  that  while,  as  a  farmer,  he  would 
never  get  far,  as  a  driver  he  knew  his  busi- 
ness. One  slight  skid  and  we  stopped 
short,  "never  to  go  again,"  like  grand- 
father's clock.  It  resulted  in  our  having 
to  be  towed  backwards  to  the  nearest  ga- 

[112] 


AN  ADVENTURE  IN  SOLITUDE 

rage,  while  the  chauffeur  jumped  on  a 
passing  motor  bound  for  Pasadena,  and 
was  snatched  from  my  sight  like  EHjah  in 
the  chariot — he  was  off  to  get  a  new  driv- 
ing shaft.  The  smiHng  Helen  followed  in 
a  Ford  full  of  old  ladies.  I  elected  to 
travel  by  train  and  sat  for  hours  in  a  small 
station  waiting  for  the  so-called  "express." 
In  a  hasty  division  of  the  lunch  I  got  all 
the  hard-boiled  eggs,  and  of  course  one 
can  eat  only  a  limited  number  of  them, 
though  I  will  say  that  a  few  quite  deaden 
one's  appetite. 

I  had  an  amazing  collection  of  bags, 
coats,  and  packages,  and  was  dreading  em- 
barking on  the  train.  However,  I  have  a 
private  motto,  "There  is  a  way."  There 
was.  The  only  occupant  of  the  waiting- 
room  besides  myself  was  a  very  dapper 
gentleman  of  what  I  should  call  lively  mid- 
[113] 


THE  SMILING  HILI^TOP 

die  age,  with  very  upstanding  gray  mus- 
taches. I  took  him  to  be  a  marooned  mo- 
torist, also.  He  was  well-dressed,  with  the 
added  touch  of  an  orange  blossom  in  his 
button-hole,  and  he  had  a  slightly  roving 
eye.  His  hand-baggage  was  most  "re- 
fined." I  had  noticed  him  looking  my  way 
at  intervals,  and  wondered  if  he  craved  a 
hard-boiled  egg;  I  could  easily  have  spared 
him  one !  While  I  am  certainly  not  in  the 
habit  of  seeking  conversation  with  strange 
gentlemen,  there  are  always  exceptions  to 
everything,  and  I  concluded  that  this  was 
one.  I  smiled  !  We  chatted  on  the  subject 
of  the  flora  and  fauna  of  CaHfornia  in  a  per- 
fectly blameless  way  till  my  train  whistled, 
when  he  said,  "I  am  going  to  carry  those 
bags  for  you,  if  you  will  allow  me!"  I 
thanked  him  aloud  and  inwardly  remarked, 
"I  have  known  that  for  a  long  time!" 
["4] 


AN  ADVENTURE  IN  SOLITUDE 

What  made  it  especially  pleasant  was 
that  I  was  going  north  and  he  was  going 
south.  So  ended  my  Adventure — not  all 
Solitude,  if  you  Hke,  but  as  near  it  as  one 
can  achieve  with  comfort.  The  amazing 
thing  about  it  was  how  well  I  got  on  with 
myself,  for  I  don't  think  Fm  particularly 

easy   to   live   with.     I   must    ask   J . 

Probably  it  was  the  novelty. 


[115] 


^^^isiii  FAMa^ 


I  ONCE  remarked  that  I  thought  New 
York  City  a  most  friendly  and  neigh- 
borly place,  and  was  greeted  with  howls  of 
derision.  I  suppose  I  said  it  because  that 
morning  a  dear  old  lady  in  an  oculist's  of- 
fice had  patted  me,  saying,  "My  dear,  it 
would  be  a'pity  to  put  glasses  on  you,"  and 
an  imposing  blonde  in  a  smart  Fifth  Ave- 
nue shop  had  sold  me  a  hat  that  I  couldn't 
afford  either  to  miss  or  to  buy,  for  half 
price,  because  she  said  I'd  talked  to  her 
like  a  human  being,  the  year  before — all  of 
which  had  warmed  my  heart.  I  think 
perhaps  my  statement  was  too  sweeping. 
[ii6] 


A  SABINE  FARM 


Since  we  have  changed  oceans  I  notice  that 
the  atmosphere  of  the  West  has  altered 
my  old  standards  somewhat.  There  is  an 
easy-going  fellowship  all  through  every 
part  of  life  on  this  side  of  the  Rocky 
Mountains. 

Take  banks,  for  instance.  Can  you  pic- 
ture a  dignified  New  York  Trust  Company 
with  bowls  of  wild  flowers  placed  about  the 
desks  and  a  general  air  of  hospitality  ?  In 
one  bank  I  have  often  had  a  pleasant  half- 
hour  very  like  an  afternoon  tea,  where  all 
the  officers,  from  the  president  down,  came 
to  shake  hands  and  ask  after  the  children. 
Of  course,  that  is  a  rather  unusually  pleas- 
ant and  friendly  bank,  even  for  CaHfornia. 
Always  I  am  carefully,  tenderly  almost, 
escorted  to  my  motor.  At  first  this  flat- 
tered me  greatly,  till  I  discovered  that 
there  is  a  law  in  California  that  if  you  slip 
[117] 


THE  SMILING  HILL-TOP 

and  hurt  yourself  on  any  one's  premises, 
they  pay  the  doctor's  bill.  Hence  the  so- 
licitude. I  was  not  to  be  allowed  to  strain 
my  ankle,  even  if  I  wanted  to. 

Probably  the  same  geniaHty  existed  in 
the  East  fifty  years  ago.  I  have  been  told 
that  it  did.  It  is  a  very  delightful  stage  of 
civilization  where  people's  shells  are  still 
soft,  if  they  have  shells  at  all.  There  is  an 
accessibility,  a  breeziness  and  camaraderie 
about  even  the  prominent  men — the  bul- 
warks of  business  and  pubHc  Hfe.  We  are 
accused  of  bragging  and  "boosting"  in  the 
West.  I  am  afraid  it  is  true.  They  are 
the  least  pleasant  attributes  of  adolescence. 

Banking  isn't  the  only  genial  profession. 
There  is  real  estate.  Of  course  about  half 
the  men  in  California  are  in  real  estate  for 
reasons  too  obvious  to  mention.  Provi- 
dence was  kind  in  putting  us  into  the  hands 
[ii8] 


A  SABINE  FARM 


of  an  honest  man,  better  still,  one  with 
imagination,  when  we  came  to  look  for  a 
winter  bungalow.  He  saw  that  we  had  to 
have  something  with  charm,  even  if  the 
furniture  was  scarce,  and  took  as  much 
pains  over  realizing  our  dream  as  if  we  had 
been  hunting  for  a  palace.  It  was  he  who 
found  our  "Sabine  Farm,"  which  brought 
us  three  of  the  best  gifts  of  the  gods — 
health,  happiness,  and  a  friend.  We  had 
almost  decided  to  take  a  picturesque  cot 
that  I  named  "The  Jungle,"  from  its  tan- 
gle of  trees  and  flowers,  even  though  the 
cook  could  reach  her  abode  only  by  an 
outside  staircase.  The  boys  had  volun- 
teered to  hqld  an  umbrella  over  her  during 
the  rainy  season,  but  I  wasn't  quite  satis- 
fied with  this  arrangement.  Just  then  we 
saw  an  enchanting  bungalow  set  in  a  gar- 
den of  bamboos,  roses  and  bananas,  and 

[119] 


THE  SMILING  HILL-TOP 

looked  no  further!  It  belonged  to  an 
English  woman  who  raised  Toggenburg 
goats,  which  made  it  all  the  more  desirable 
for  us  as  the  goats  were  to  stay  at  the 
back  of  the  garden,  and  provide  not  only 
milk  but  interest  for  the  boys. 

J dubbed  it  *'E1  rancho  goato"  at 

once.  Our  friends  in  the  East  were  de- 
lighted with  the  idea,  and  many  were  their 
gibes.  One  in  particular  always  added 
something  to  the  address  of  his  letters  for 
the  guide  or  diversion  of  the  R.  F.  D. 
postman:  "Route  2,  Box  so-and-so,  you 
can  tell  the  place  by  the  goats";  or  during 
the  spring  floods  this  appeared  in  one  cor- 
ner of  the  envelope:  "Were  the  goats  above 
high  water?" 

It  wasn't  just  an  ordinary  farm.  There 
was  a  certain  something — I  think  the 
names  of  the  goats  had  a  lot  to  do  with  it 
[120] 


A  SABINE  FARM 


— Corella,  Coila,  Babette,  Elfa,  Viva,  Lo- 
rine,  and  so  on,  or  perhaps  it  was  the  devo- 
tion of  their  mistress,  who  expended  the 
love  and  care  of  a  very  large  heart  on  a 
family  that  I  think  appreciated  it  as  far  as 
goats  are  capable  of  appreciation.  If  she 
was  a  little  late  coming  home  (she  had  a 
tiny  shack  on  one  corner  of  the  place)  they 
would  be  waiting  at  the  gate  calling  plain- 
tively. There  is  a  plaintive  tone  about 
everything  a  goat  has  to  say.     In  his  cot 

on  the  porch  J composed  some  verses 

one  morning  early — I  forget  them  except 
for  two  lines : 

"The  plaintive  note  of  a  querulous  goat 
Over  my  senses  seems  to  float." 

Of  course  that  was  the  difficulty — crea- 
tures of  one  kind  or  another  do  not  lie 
abed  late.  Our  Sabine  Farm  was  sur- 
rounded by  others  and  there  was  a  neigh- 

[121] 


THE  SMILING  HILI^TOP 

borhood  hymn  to  the  dawn  that  it  took 
us  some  time  to  really  enjoy — if  we  ever 
did.  Sopranos — roosters;  altos — pigeons, 
and  ducks;  tenors — goats;  bassos — cows, 
and  one  donkey.  There  was  nothing  miss- 
ing to  make  a  full,  rich  volume  of  sound. 
Of  course  there  is  no  place  where  it  is  so 
difficult  to  get  a  long,  refreshing  night's 
sleep  as  the  country. 

One  rarely  comes  through  any  new  ex- 
perience with  all  one's  preconceived  ideas 
intact.  Our  first  season  on  the  Sabine 
Farm  shattered  a  number  of  mine.  I  had 
always  supposed  that  a  mocking-bird,  like 
a  garden,  was  "a  lovesome  thing,  God 
wot."  Romantic — ^just  one  step  below  a 
nightingale ! 

There  was  a  thicket  of  bamboos  dose  to 
my  window,  and  every  night  all  the  young 
mocking-birds  gathered  there  to  try  out 
[122] 


A  SABINE  FARM 


their  voices.  It  was  partly  elocutionary 
and  partly  vocal,  but  almost  entirely  exer- 
cises— rarely  did  they  favor  me  with  a  real 
song.  This  would  go  on  for  some  time, 
then  just  as  I  dared  to  hope  that  lessons 
were  over,  another  burst  of  ill-assorted 
trills  and  shrills  would  rouse  me  to  fury. 
I  kept  three  pairs  of  boots  in  a  convenient 
place,  and  hurled  them  into  the  bamboos, 
paying  the  boys  a  small  reward  for  retriev- 
ing them  each  morning.  Sometimes,  if  my 
aim  was  good,  a  kind  of  wondering  silence 
lasted  long  enough  for  me  to  fall  asleep. 
There  is  an  old  song — ^we  all  know  it — that 
runs: 

"She's  sleeping  in  the  valley,  etc.,  etc.. 
And  the  mocking-bird  is  singing  where  she  lies." 

That,  of  course,  would  be  impossible  if 
the  poor  little  thing  hadn't  been  dead. 
By  day  I  really  enjoyed  them.     To  sit 
[123] 


THE  SMILING  HILL-TOP 

in  the  garden,  which  smelled  Hke  a  per- 
petual wedding,  reading  Lafcadio  Hearn 
and  listening  to  mocking-birds  and  linnets, 
would  have  undermined  my  New  England 
upbringing  very  quickly,  had  I  had  time 
to  indulge  often  in  such  a  lotus-eating 
existence. 

Then  there  was  "Boost."  He  was  a 
small  bantam  rooster,  beloved  of  our  land- 
lady, which  really  proves  nothing  because 
she  was  such  a  tender-hearted  person  that 
she  loved  every  dumb  creature  that  wan- 
dered to  her  door.  Had  Boost  been  dumb 
I  might  have  loved  him  too.  He  had  a 
voice  like  the  noise  a  small  boy  can  make 
with  a  tin  can  and  a  resined  string.  He 
had  a  malevolent  eye  and  knew  that  I  de- 
tested him,  so  that  he  took  especial  pains 
to  crow  under  my  windows,  generally  about 
an  hour  after  the  mocking-birds  stopped. 
[124] 


A  SABINE  FARM 


I  think  living  with  a  lot  of  big  hens  and 
roosters  told  on  his  nervous  system,  and 
he  took  it  out  on  me.  Great  self-restraint 
did  I  exercise  in  not  wringing  his  neck, 
when  help  came  from  an  unexpected  quar- 
ter. Boost  had  spirit — I  grant  him  that 
— and  one  day  he  evidently  forgot  that  he 
wasn't  a  full-sized  bird,  and  was  reproved 
by  the  Sultan  of  the  poultry-yard  in  such 
a  way  that  he  was  found  almost  dead  of 

his  wounds.     Dear   Miss   W 's   heart 

was  quite  broken.  She  fed  him  brandy 
and  anointed  him  with  healing  lotions, 
but  to  no  avail.  He  died.  I  had  felt 
much  torn  and  rather  doublefaced  in  my 
inquiries  for  the  sufferer,  because  I  was  so 
terribly  afraid  he  might  get  well,  so  it  was 
a  great  relief  when  he  was  safely  buried  in 
the  back  lot. 

Though  I  love  animals  I  have  had  blood- 

[125] 


THE  SMILING  HILL-TOP 

thirsty  moments  of  feeling  that  the  only- 
possible  way  to  enjoy  pets  was  to  have 
them  like  those  wooden  Japanese  eggs 
which  fit  into  each  other.  If  you  have 
white  mice  or  a  canary,  have  a  cat  to  con- 
tain the  canary,  and  a  dog  to  reckon  with 
the  cat.  Further  up  in  the  scale  the  mat- 
ter is  more  difficult,  of  course.  One  of  our 
*'best  seller"  manufacturers,  in  his  early 
original  days,  wrote  a  delightful  tale.  In 
it  he  said:  "A  Cheetah  is  a  yellow  streak 
full  of  people's  pet  dogs,"  so  perhaps  that 
is  the  answer.  The  ultimate  cheetah 
would,  of  course,  have  to  be  shot  and 
stuffed,  as  it  would  hardly  be  possible  to 
have  a  wild-cat  lounging  about  the  place. 
I  think  the  idea  has  possibilities.  So  many 
of  our  plans  are  determined  by  pets.  **No, 
we  can't  close  the  house  and  go  motoring 
for  a  week,  because  there  is  no  one  with 

[  126  ] 


A  SABINE  FARM 


whom  to  leave  the  puppies."     "Yes,  we 

rented  our  house  to  Mrs.  S for  less 

than  we  expected  to  get  for  it,  because  she 
is  so  fond  of  cats  and  promised  to  take  good 
care  of  Pom  Pom'* — ^which  recalls  to  my 
mind  a  dear  little  girl  who  had  a  white 
kitten  that  she  was  entrusting  to  a  neigh- 
bor. The  neighbor,  a  busy  person  with 
eight  children,  received  the  kitten  without 
demonstration  of  any  kind.  Little  Lydia 
looked  at  her  for  a  few  moments  and  then 

said,  "Mrs.  F ,  that  kitten  must  be 

loved."  That  is  really  the  trouble,  not 
only  must  they  be  loved,  but  they  are  loved 
and  then  the  pull  on  your  heart-strings 
begins.  We  have  a  pair  of  twin  silver- 
haired  Yorkshire  terriers,  who  are  an  inti- 
mate part  of  our  family  circle.  I  some- 
times feel  like  a  friend  of  mine  in  San  Fran- 
cisco, who  has  a  marvellous  Chinese  cook, 
[127] 


THE  SMILING  HILL-TOP 

and  says  she  hopes  she  will  die  before  Li 
does.  I  hope  "  Rags  "  and  "Tags  "  will  live 
as  long  as  I  do — and  yet  they  are  a  perfect 
pest.  If  they  are  outdoors  they  want  to 
come  in,  or  vice  versa.  It  is  practically 
impossible  to  sneak  off  in  the  motor  with- 
out their  escort  and  they  bark  at  my  best 
callers.  Since  they  made  substantial  sums 
of  money  begging  for  the  Red  Cross,  they 
have  added  a  taste  for  publicity  to  their 
other  insistent  qualities  and  come  into  the 
drawing-room,  and  sit  up  in  front  of  who- 
ever may  be  calling,  with  a  view  to  sugar 
and  petting.  And  the  worst  of  it  is  I  can't 
maintain  discipline  at  all.  Rags  has  had 
to  be  anointed  with  a  salve  compounded 
of  tar  and  sulphur.  It  is  an  indignity  and 
quite  crushes  his  spirit,  so  that  after  it  has 
been  put  on  he  wishes  to  sit  close  to  me 
for  comfort.  The  result  is  that  I  become 
[  128  ] 


A  SABINE  FARM 


like  a  winter  overcoat  just  emerging  from 
moth-balls  rather  than  hurt  his  feelings. 
Ofcourse  it  makes  some  difference  whether 
the  pet  that  is  annoying  you  belongs  to 
you  or  a  neighbor.  I  doubt  whether  I 
could  have  loved  Boost,  however,  even  if 
I  had  known  him  from  the  shell. 

In  spite  of  these  various  drawbacks  we 
led  a  most  happy  life.  It  was  so  easy. 
The  bungalow  was  so  attractively  fur- 
nished; our  own  oranges  and  limes  grew  at 
the  door.  There  was  just  room  for  us 
with  nothing  to  spare,  that  had  to  be  kept 
in  order,  and  our  landlady  was  as  different 
from  the  cold-hearted  ones  we  had  known 
as  the  bankers  and  real-estate  men.  She 
seemed  to  be  always  trying  to  think  of 
what  we  might  need,  and  to  provide  it. 

Dear  Miss  W ,  'she  will  never  be  a  good 

business  woman  from  the  world's  point  of 
[  129  ] 


THE  SMILING  HILL-TOP 

view;  she  is  too  generous  and  too  unsel- 
fish !  We  all  loved  her.  Many  were  the 
hours  I  inveigled  her  into  wasting  while 
we  sat  on  bales  of  the  goats'  hay  and  dis- 
cussed Hfe  and  the  affairs  of  the  country 
— but  mostly  life  with  its  curious  twists 
and  turns — its  generosities  and  its  stingi- 
nesses. The  boys  spent  their  time  in  the 
goat-pen  making  friends  of  the  little  kids, 
whose  various  advents  added  so  much  in- 
terest to  the  spring,  and  learning  much 

from  Miss  W ,  whose  attitude  towards 

life  was  so  sane  and  wholesome  for  them 
to  know. 

"Buckaboo,"  the  only  buck  on  the  ranch 
when  we  came,  was  a  dashing  young  crea- 
ture, prancing  about  and  kicking  up  his 
heels  for  the  pure  joy  of  living.  Joedy  in- 
formed J that  he  reminded  him  of  him, 

''only  in  a  goat  way,  father" — a  tribute 
[130] 


A  SABINE  FARM 


to  the  light-heartedness  that  California 
had  already  brought  to  at  least  one  mem- 
ber of  the  family. 

If  our  Sabine  Farm's  vocation  was  goats, 
its  avocation  was  surely  roses.  We  were 
literally  smothered  in  them.  A  Cecil 
Brunner  with  its  perfect  little  buds,  so 
heavily  perfumed,  covered  one  corner  of 
the  house.  The  Lady  Bankshire,  with  its 
deHcate  yellow  blossoms,  roofed  our  porch, 
and  the  glorious  Gold  of  Ophir,  so  thorny 
and  with  little  fragrance,  concealed  our 
laundry  from  the  road.  There  was  a  gar- 
den of  bush  roses  of  all  kinds  to  cut  for  the 
house,  and  the  crowning  glory  of  all  was  a 
hedge  of  "Tausend  Schon,"  growing  lux- 
uriantly, and  a  blaze  of  bloom  in  May. 
After  years  of  illness  and  worry,  it  was 
good  to  feel  Hfe  coming  back  joyously  in 
a  kind  of  haven — or  heaven — of  roses. 

[131] 


HE  mm  &^mMWX 


WHEN  Alice  stepped  through  the 
looking-glass  and  ran  out  into  that 
most  alluring  garden,  she  must  have  felt 
much  as  I  did  long  ago  when  I  stepped  off 
the  Santa  Fe  Limited  and  found  myself  in 
Southern  California  for  the  first  time !  It 
isn't  just  the  palm  trees  and  the  sunshine, 
though  they  are  part  of  the  charm.  It 
isn't  even  the  mocking-birds  and  the 
orange  blossoms  altogether.  It  is  some- 
thing you  can't  really  put  your  finger  on, 
that  lures  you  from  your  old  habits  and 
associations.  At  first  you  are  simply  glad 
[132] 


THE  LAND  OF  WHYNOT 

that  you  have  left  the  cold  and  snow  be- 
hind you,  and  that  the  earth  is  so  sweet 
with  flowers,  and  then  you  begin  to  find  a 
new  world  of  possibilities.  There  are  all 
sorts  of  Httle  garden  gates  with  golden 
keys  on  glass  tables,  and  you  set  about 
growing  shorter  or  taller,  as  the  case  may 
be,  to  make  yourself  a  proper  height  to 
reach  the  key  and  sHp  through  the  door. 
You  don't  even  need  to  hurry,  if  you  are 
firm  about  not  grasping  the  hand  of  any 
Red  Queen  that  may  come  your  way,  and 
yet  it  isn't  a  land  of  manana;  it's  a  land 
of  "Why  Not  ?"  The  magic  has  nothing 
to  do  with  one's  age;  I  feel  it  now  even 
more  than  I  did  twenty  years  ago,  and 
Grandmother  felt  it  at  eighty  just  as  I 
did  at  eighteen.  Ulysses  could  have  him- 
self lashed  to  the  mast  and  snap  his  fingers 
at  the  Sirens,  but  I  know  of  no  protection 
[133] 


THE  SMILING  HILL-TOP 

against  the  Southwest  except  to  somehow 
close  the  shutters  of  your  imagination. 
However,  let  me  not  be  a  Calvinist;  be- 
cause it  is  enchanting,  why  should  I  fear  it  ? 
I  shall  never  forget  my  first  experience 
of  the  spell.  I  was  invited  by  my  Grand- 
mother to  go  to  California  for  several 
months.  There  were  four  of  us,  and  we 
were  all  tired,  for  one  reason  or  another; 
Grandmother  because  she  was  eighty,  and 
it's  a  strenuous  matter  to  live  eighty  years; 
my  Aunt  because  she  had  been  desperately 
ill;  C.  C.  because  she  had  nursed  my  Aunt 
back  to  comparative  health,  and  I  because 
I  had  been  a  debutante  that  winter,  and 
every  one  knows  that  that  is  the  hardest 
work  of  all.  We  went  as  far  south  as  the 
train  would  take  us,  and  settled  ourselves 
at  Coronado  to  bask  in  the  sunshine  until 
the  tiredness  was  gone  and  we  became  a 
band  of  explorers,  with  the  world  before 

[134] 


THE  LAND  OF  WHYNOT 

us !  A  pair  of  buggies  drawn  by  nags  of 
unblemished  reputation  for  sagacity  and 
decorum,  driven  by  C.  C.  and  me,  carried 
us  over  many  a  picturesque  and  rough 
road.  It  invariably  took  us  all  day  to  get 
anywhere  and  back,  irrespective  of  what 
the  distance  was  supposed  to  be.  The  out- 
fit was  so  old  that  I  often  had  to  draw  up 
my  steed  and  mend  the  harness  with  a 
safety-pin.  TraiHng  Ramona  was  our  fa- 
vorite game.  Fortunately  for  that  part 
of  the  country,  she  and  Allessandro  man- 
aged to  be  born,  or  sleep,  or  marry,  or  die 
in  pretty  nearly  every  little  settlement, 
ranch,  or  mission  in  San  Diego  County, 
and  it's  a  great  boon  to  the  country.  Now, 
of  course,  with  a  motor  you  can  cover  the 
ground  in  a  day,  but  then,  with  a  guaran- 
teed horse  and  a  safety-pinned  harness, 
Ramona  was  good  for  weeks. 
We  usually  took  a  picnic  lunch,  and  it 
li3S] 


THE  SMILING  HILI^-TOP 

was  on  one  of  these  trips  that  I  first  saw 
the  Smiling  Hill-Top  and  knew  it  not  for 
my  later  love.  How  often  that  happens  I 
Jogging  home,  with  the  reins  slack  on  the 
placid  mare's  back,  Grandmother  liked  me 
to  sing  "Believe  Me  If  All  Those  Endear- 
ing Young  Charms"  and  "Araby's  Daugh- 
ter," showing  that  she  was  a  good  deal 
under  the  spell  of  the  palm  trees  and  the 
sunset,  for  I  have  the  voice  of  a  lost  kitten. 
It  also  shows  the  perfect  self-control  of  the 
horse,  for  no  accidents  occurred. 

It  was  a  very  different  Coronado  from 
the  present  day,  with  its  motors  on  earth 
and  water,  and  in  air.  I  liked  ours  better 
and  hated  to  leave  it,  but  after  six  weeks 
of  its  glory  of  sunshine  I  was  deputed  to 
go  north  to  Pasadena  to  rent  a  bungalow 
for  two  months.  It  was  my  first  attempt 
of  the  kind,  and  aided  by  a  cousin  into 

1 136] 


THE  LAND  OF  WHYNOT 

whose  care  I  had  been  confided,  I  suc- 
ceeded in  reducing  the  rent  twenty-five 
dollars  a  month  for  a  pretty  cottage  smoth- 
ered in  roses  and  heliotropes  and  well 
supplied  with  orange  and  lemon  trees.  I 
was  rather  pleased  with  myself  as  a  busi- 
ness woman.  Not  so  Grandmother.  She 
was  thoroughly  indignant  and  announced 
her  firm  intention  of  paying  the  original 
rent  asked,  a  phenomenon  that  so  sur- 
prised our  landlord,  when  I  told  him,  that 
he  insisted  on  scrubbing  the  kitchen  floor 
personally,  the  day  of  her  arrival.  Thus 
did  Raleigh  lay  down  his  cloak  for  the 
Queen ! 

Everything  was  lovely.  It  only  rained 
once  that  spring — the  morning  after  we 
had  gone  up  Mount  Lowe  to  see  the  sun 
rise,  to  be  sure,  but  it  would  be  a  carping 
creature  who  would  complain  when  only 
[137] 


THE  SMILING  HILL-TOP 

one  expedition  had  been  dampened.  For 
twenty  years  I  cherished  the  illusion  that 
this  was  a  land  of  endless  sunshine.  I 
don't  know  where  I  thought  the  moisture 
came  from  that  produces  the  almost  tropi- 
cal luxuriance  of  the  gardens  and  the 
groves.  I  know  better  now  and,  strange 
to  say,  I  have  come  to  love  a  rain  in  its 
proper  time  and  place,  if  it  isn't  too  bois- 
terous. We  discovered  a  veteran  of  the 
Civil  War  turned  liveryman,  who  for  a 
paltry  consideration  in  cash  was  ours  every 
afternoon,  and  showed  us  something  new 
each  day,  from  racing  horses  on  the  Lucky 
Baldwin  Ranch  to  the  shadow  of  a  spread 
eagle  on  a  rock.  Grandmother's  favorite 
excursion  was  to  a  picturesque  winery  set 
in  vineyards  and  shaded  by  eucalyptus 
trees.  She  was  what  I  should  call  a  wine- 
jelly,  plum-pudding  prohibitionist,  and  she 

[138] 


THE  LAND  OF  WHYNOT 

included  tastes  of  port  and  fruit  cordials 
as  part  of  the  sight-seeing  to  be  done. 
You  can  be  pretty  at  eighty,  which  is  con- 
soling to  know.  Grandmother,  with  a 
little  curl  over  each  ear  and  the  pink  born 
of  these  "tastes"  proved  it,  and  she 
wouldn't  let  us  tease  her  about  it  either. 
It  was  an  easy  Hfe,  and  so  fascinating  that 
I  even  said  to  myself,  "Why  not  learn  to 
play  the  guitar?"  for  nothing  seemed 
impossible.  It  shows  how  thoroughly 
drugged  I  was  by  this  time,  for  my  Creator 
wholly  omitted  to  supply  me  with  a  musi- 
cal ear.  I  always  had  to  have  my  instru- 
ment tuned  by  the  young  man  next  door, 
but  I  learned  to  play  "My  Old  Kentucky 
Home"  so  that  every  one  recognized  it. 
Now,  if  years  had  not  taught  me  some 
fundamental  facts  about  my  limitations,  I 
should  probably  render  twilight  hideous 
[139] 


THE  SMILING  HILL-TOP 

with  a  ukelele,  for  a  ukelele  goes  a  guitar 
one  better,  and  Aloha  oee  wailed  languor- 
ously on  that  instrument  would  make  even 
a  Quaker  relax. 

It  was  in  the  late  spring  that  the  Great 
Idea  came  to  Aunty  and  me.  I  don't  know 
which  of  us  was  really  responsible  for  it, 
and  there  was  a  time  when  neither  of  us 
would  own  it.  A  course  in  small  "Why 
Nots  r*  made  it  come  quite  naturally  at 
the  last.  Why  shouldn't  we  drive  into  the 
Yosemite  Valley  before  we  went  home  ? 
By  the  end  of  May  it  would  be  at  its  loveli- 
est, with  the  melted  snows  from  the  moun- 
tains filling  its  streams  and  making  a 
rushing,  spraying  glory  of  its  falls.  It  did 
seem  a  pity  to  be  so  near  one  of  the  loveli- 
est places  on  earth  and  to  miss  seeing  it. 
Aunty  and  I  discussed  the  matter  dispas- 
sionately under  a  palm  tree  in  the  back 
[140] 


THE  LAND  OF  WHYNOT 

yard.  We  honestly  concluded  that  it 
wouldn't  hurt  Grandmother  a  bit,  that  it 
might  even  do  her  good,  so  we  began  to 
put  out  a  few  conversational  feelers,  and 
the  next  thing  we  knew  she  was  claiming 
the  idea  as  her  own  and  inviting  us  to 
accompany  her !  In  her  early  married  life 
she  was  once  heard  to  say  to  Grandfather, 
"Edwin,  I  have  made  up  our  minds."  So 
you  can  see  that  Aunty  and  I  were  as  clay 
in  her  hands !  Where  we  made  our  great 
mistake  was  in  writing  to  the  rest  of  the 
family  about  our  plans  until  after  we  had 
started.  They  became  quite  abusive  in 
their  excitement.  Were  we  crazy  ?  Had 
we  forgotten  Grandmother's  age?  What 
was  C.  C,  a  trained  nurse,  about,  to  let  a 
little  delicate  old  lady  take  such  a  trip? 
They  were  much  shocked.  We  had  to  ad- 
mit her  age,  but  Aunty  and  I  weren't  so 

[141] 


THE  SMILING  HILL-TOP 

sure  about  her  delicacy,  and  anyway  her 
mind  was  made  up,  so  we  burned  their 
telegrams  and  packed  the  bags. 

It  happened  twenty  years  ago,  but  I  can 
see  her  sitting  in  a  rocking-chair  on  the 
piazza  of  Leidig's  Hotel  in  Raymond,  sur- 
rounded by  miners,  all  courteously  editing 
their  conversation  and  chewing  tobacco  as 
placidly  as  a  herd  of  cows,  while  Grand- 
mother, the  only  person  whose  feet  were 
not  elevated  to  the  railing,  rocked  gently 
and  smiled.  Of  course  we  planned  to 
make  the  trip  as  easy  as  possible,  and  had 
engaged  a  spring  wagon  so  that  we  could 
take  more  time  than  the  stage,  which 
naturally  had  to  live  up  to  a  Bret  Harte 
standard.  We  made  an  early  start  from 
Raymond  after  a  rather  troubled  night  at 
Leidig's  Hotel.  You  hear  strange  sounds 
in  a  mining  camp  after  dark.  Every  one 
[  142  ] 


THE  LAND  OF  WHYNOT 

in  town  saw  us  off,  as  Grandmother  was 
already  popular,  and  looked  on  as  rather  a 
sporting  character.  Al  Stevens,  who  drove 
us,  was  a  bitter  disappointment  to  me,  not 
looking  in  the  least  romantic  or  like  the 
hero  of  a  Western  story.  I  shan't  even  de- 
scribe him,  except  to  say  that  he  smoked 
most  evil-smelling  cigars,  the  bouquet  of 
which  blew  back  into  our  faces  and  spoiled 
the  pure  mountain  air,  but  we  didn't  dare 
say  a  word,  for  fear  that  he  might  lash  his 
horses  round  some  hair-pin  curve  and  scare 
us  to  death,  even  if  we  didn't  actually  go 
over  the  edge.  I  don't  think  he  would 
really  have  rushed  to  extremes,  for  he 
turned  out  to  be  distinctly  amiable,  and 
our  picnic  lunches,  eaten  near  some  moun- 
tain spring,  were  partaken  of  most  sociably 
and  Al  Stevens  didn't  always  smoke.  How 
good  everything  tasted  !  I  don't  believe  I 
[143] 


THE  SMILING  HILL-TOP 

have  ever  really  enjoyed  apple  pie  with  a 
fork  as  I  enjoyed  it  sitting  on  a  log  with  a 
generous  wedge  in  one  hand  and  a  hearty 
morsel  of  mouse-trap  cheese  in  the  other. 
We  spent  three  days  driving  into  the 
valley,  staying  at  delightful  inns  over 
night,  and  stopping  when  we  pleased,  to 
pick  flowers,  for  wonderful  ones  grow  be- 
side the  road;  Mariposa  tulips  with  their 
spotted  butterfly  wings,  fairy  lanterns,  all 
the  shades  of  blue  lupin,  and  on  our  detour 
to  see  the  big  trees  I  found  a  snow-plant, 
which  looks  Hke  a  blossom  carved  out  of 
watermelon — pink  and  luscious !  It  is 
hard  to  realize  how  big  the  big  trees  are ! 
Like  St.  Peter's,  they  are  so  wonderfully 
'proportioned  you  can't  appreciate  their 
height,  but  I  do  know  that  they  would  be 
just  a  Httle  more  than  my  tree-climbing 
sons  would  care  to  tackle.  Stevens  was  a 
[  144  ] 


THE  LAND  OF  WHYNOT 

good  driver  and  approved  of  our  apprecia- 
tion of  "his"  scenery,  and  I  think  he  was 
proud  of  Grandmother,  who  really  stood 
the  trip  wonderfully  well.  At  last  came 
the  great  moment  when  a  bend  in  the  road 
would  disclose  the  valley  with  its  silver 
peaks,  its  golden-brown  river,  and  its  rain- 
bow-spanned falls.  We  had  never  sus- 
pected it,  but  Stevens  was  an  epicure  in 
beauty.  He  insisted  on  our  closing  our 
eyes  till  we  came  to  just  the  spot  where 
the  view  was  most  perfect,  and  then  he 
drew  in  his  horses,  gave  the  word,  and  we 
looked  on  a  valley  as  lovely  as  a  dream. 
I  am  glad  that  we  saw  it  as  we  did,  after  a 
long  prelude  of  shaded  roads  and  sentinel 
trees.  Nowadays  you  rush  to  it  madly 
by  train  and  motor.  Then  it  was  a  dear 
secret  hidden  away  in  the  heart  of  the  for- 
est. 

[i4Sl 


THE  SMILING  HILL-TOP 

We  spent  five  days  at  the  hotel  by  the 
Merced  River,  feasting  on  beauty  and 
mountain  trout,  and  lulled  by  the  murmur 
of  that  gentle  stream.  Moonlight  illu- 
mined the  whiteness  of  the  Yosemite  Falls 
in  full  view  of  the  hotel  verandah  as  it 
makes  the  double  leap  down  a  dark  gorge. 
We  could  see  a  great  deal  with  very  little 
effort,  but  after  a  day  or  two  I  began  to 
look  longingly  upward  toward  the  moun- 
tain trails.  At  last  a  chance  came,  and 
"Why  Not"  led  me  to  embrace  it.  A 
wholesale  milliner  from  Los  Angeles  in- 
vited me  to  join  his  party.  We  had  seen 
him  at  various  places  along  our  way,  so 
that  it  was  not  entirely  out  of  a  clear  sky. 
He  was  wall-eyed — if  that  is  the  opposite 
of  cross-eyed — ^which  gave  him  so  decidedly 
rakish  a  look  that  it  was  some  time  before 
I  could  persuade  my  conservative  relatives 

[146] 


THE  LAND  OF  WHYNOT 

that  it  would  be  safe  for  me  to  accept  the 
invitation,  but  as  the  party  numbered  ten, 
mostly  female,  they  finally  gave  me  their 
blessing.  Being  the  last  comer,  and  the 
mules  being  all  occupied,  I  had  to  take  a 
horse,  which  I  was  sorry  for,  as  they  aren't 
supposed  to  be  quite  as  sure-footed  on  the 
trail.  The  party  all  urged  me  to  be  cau- 
tious, with  such  emphasis  that  I  began  to 
wonder  if  I  had  been  wise  to  come,  when 
Charley,  our  guide,  told  me  not  to  pay 
any  attention  to  them,  that  I  had  the  best 
mount  of  the  whole  train.  Charley,  by 
the  way,  was  all  that  Al  Stevens  was  not, 
and  added  the  note  of  picturesqueness  and 
romance  which  my  soul  had  been  craving. 
He  was  young,  blond,  and  dressed  for  the 
part,  and  would  have  entranced  a  moving- 
picture  company !  The  wholesale  milliner 
called  me  "Miss  Black  Eyes,"  and  was  so 

[147] 


THE  SMILING  HILL-TOP 

genial  in  manner  that  I  joined  Charley  at 
the  end  of  the  parade  and  heard  stories  of 
his  life  which  may  or  may  not  have  been 
true.  Every  now  and  then  Jesse  James, 
an  especially  independent  mule,  would 
pause,  and  with  deUberation  and  vigor  kick 
at  an  inaccessible  fly  on  the  hinder  parts 
of  his  person,  while  his  rider  shrieked 
loudly  for  help,  and  the  procession  halted 
till  calm  was  restored.  At  last  we  reached 
the  end  of  the  trail.  Somewhere  I  have  a 
snap-shot  of  myself  standing  on  Glacier 
Point,  that  rock  that  juts  out  over  the 
valley,  cHnging  to  Charley's  hand,  for  I 
found  that  standing  there  with  the  snow 
falHng,  looking  down  thousands  of  feet, 
made  me  crave  a  hand  to  keep  the  snow- 
flakes  from  drawing  me  down.  The  whole- 
sale milliner  and  the  rest  considered  me  a 
reckless  soul,  and  many  were  the  falsetto 

[148] 


THE  LAND  OF  WHYNOT 

shrieks  they  emitted  if  I  went  within  ten 
feet  of  the  edge  of  the  precipice.  They 
did  not  realize  the  insurance  and  assurance 
of  Charley's  hand. 

Of  course  I  endured  the  anguish  of  a 
first  horseback  ride  for  the  next  day  or 
two,  but  it  was  worth  it,  and  by  the  time 
we  were  ready  to  start  for  home  I  could 
sit  down  quite  comfortably.  The  trip  was 
accomplished  without  a  jolt  or  jog  suffi- 
cient to  disarrange  Grandmother's  curls. 
Aunty  and  I  were  always  so  thankful  that 
we  defied  the  family  and  let  her  have  her 
last  adventure,  for  soon  afterward  her 
mind  began  to  grow  dim.  For  myself,  I 
treasure  the  memory  both  for  her  sake, 
and  because  I  can't  climb  trails  myself 
any  more,  and  that  is  something  I  didn't 
miss.  Was  it  Schopenhauer  or  George  Ade 
who  said,  "What  you've  had  you've  got"  ? 
[149] 


THE  SMILING  HILL-TOP 

Twenty  years  later  another  party  of  four, 
consisting  of  a  husband  and  two  boys,  were 
led  by  a  lady  Moses  into  the  promised  land, 
and  were  met  by  an  old  friend,  the  Civil 
War  veteran,  with  a  motor  instead  of  his 
pair  of  black  horses !  He  was  too  old  to 
drive,  but  he  had  come  to  welcome  me 
back.  Billie  and  Joedy  were  thrilled. 
They  adored  the  tales  of  his  twelve  battles 
and  the  hole  in  his  knee,  even  more  than 
their  mother  had  before  them,  being 
younger  and  boys.  It  was  as  lovely  a  land 
as  I  had  remembered  it,  only,  of  course, 
there  were  changes.  The  motor  showed 
that.  I  should  not  say  that  the  tempo  of 
life  had  been  quickened  so  much  as  that 
its  radius  had  been  widened,  or  that  the 
focus  was  different;  the  old  spell  was 
the  same.  To  reconcile  the  past  and  the 
present,  I  have  thought  of  a  beautiful  com- 
[ISO] 


THE  LAND  OF  WHYNOT 

promise.  Why  not  a  motor  van  ?  The 
family  jeered  at  me  when  I  first  suggested 
that  we  spend  J 's  next  vacation  mean- 
dering up  the  coast  in  one.  Of  course,  the 
boys  adored  the  idea  at  first,  but  sober 
second  thoughts  for  mother  made  them 
pause. 

Billie:  "But,  Muvs,  you'd  hate  it,  you 
couldn't  have  a  box  spring!" 

Joedy:  "And  you  don't  like  to  wash 
dishes." 

Quite  true.  I  had  thought  of  all  that 
myself.  I  don't  Hke  to  wash  dishes,  but 
we  use  far  more  than  we  really  need  to  use, 
and  anyway  I  had  rather  decided  that  I 
wouldn't  wash  them.  As  to  the  bed- 
spring,  I  could  have  an  air  mattress,  for 
while  it's  a  little  like  sleeping  on  a  captive 
balloon,  it  doesn't  irritate  your  bones  like 
a  camp  cot. 

[iSi] 


THE  SMILING  HILL-TOP 

The  family  distrust  of  me,  as  a  vaga- 
bond, dates  from  a  camping  trip  last  Au- 
gust to  celebrate  Billie's  twelfth  birthday. 
It  lasted  only  one  night,  so  "trip"  is  a 
large  word  to  apply  to  it,  but  I  will  say 
that  for  one  night  it  had  all  the  time  there 
could  be  squeezed  into  it.  We  selected  a 
site  on  the  beach  almost  within  hallooing 
distance  of  the  Smihng  Hill-Top,  borrowed 
a  tent  and  made  camp.  I  loved  the  fire 
and  frying  the  bacon  and  the  beat  of  the 
waves,  but  I  did  not  like  the  smell  of  the 
tent.  It  was  stuffy.  I  had  been  gen- 
erously given  that  shelter  for  my  own, 
while  the  male  members  of  the  party  slept 

by  a  log  (not  like  one,  J confessed  to 

me)  under  a  tarpaulin — I  mean  "tarp" — 
with  stars  above  them  except  when  ob- 
scured by  fog.  My  cot  was  short  and  low 
and  I  am  not,  so  that  I  spent  the  night 

I  152  ] 


THE  LAND  OF  WHYNOT 

tucking  in  the  blankets.  The  puppies  en- 
joyed it  all  thoroughly.  Though  they 
must  have  been  surprised  by  the  sudden 
democratic  intimacy  of  the  situation,  they 
are  opportunists  and  curled  themselves  in, 
on,  and  about  my  softer  portions,  so  that 
I  had  to  push  them  out  every  time  I  wanted 
to  turn  over,  which  was  frequently.  I 
urged  them  to  join  the  rest  of  the  party 
under  the  "tarp,"  but  they  were  firm,  as 
they  weren't  minding  the  hardness  of  the 
cot,  and  they  don't  care  especially  about 
ventilation.  I  greeted  the  dawn  with 
heartfelt  thanksgiving,  and  yet  I'm  as  keen 
about  my  vacation  idea  as  ever.  I  have 
simply  learned  what  to  do  and  what  not 
to  do,  and  it  won't  matter  to  me  in  the 
least  whether  my  ways  are  those  of  a  ten- 
derfoot or  not.  Why  not  be  comfortable 
physically  as  well  as  spiritually  ?  Think 
liS3] 


THE  SMILING  HILL-TOP 

of  the  independence  of  it !  To  be  able  to 
sit  at  the  feet  of  any  view  that  you  fancy 
till  you  are  ready  to  move  on !  Doesn't 
that  amount  to  **free  will"  ?  Yes,  I  am 
resolved  to  try  it  out  and  Billie  says  if  I 
make  up  my  mind  to  something  I  generally 
get  my  way  (being  descended  from  Grand- 
mother probably  accounts  for  it),  so  if  you 
should  see  a  rather  fat,  lazy  green  van 
with  **Why  not  ?"  painted  over  the  back 
door,  you  may  know  that  two  grown  vaga- 
bonds, two  young  vagabonds,  and  two 
vagabond  pups,  are  on  the  trail  following 
the  gypsy  patter  an. 


[iS4l 


MR.  JONES   meets    his   friend,  Mr. 
Brown ; 
**  Surprised  to  see  that  your  house  is  for 
sale,  Brown." 

"Oh — er — ^yes"  replies  Brown;  "that  is, 
I  don't  know.  I  keep  that  sign  up  on  the 
lawn."  Then  with  a  burst  of  confidence: 
"Mrs.  Brown  meets  so  many  nice  people 
that  way,  don't  you  know!" 

So  it  is  that  we  have  a  reputation  for 
being  willing  to  sell  anything  in  CaHfornia, 
[iSS] 


THE  SMILING  HILL-TOP 

even  our  souls.  Of  course,  it  isn't  at  all 
necessary  to  have  a  sign  displaying  "For 
Sale"  to  have  constant  inquiries  as  to  the 
price  of  your  place.  After  the  days  of 
"The  Sabine  Farm"  were  only  a  lovely 
memory,  we  bought  a  bungalow  in  Pasa- 
dena, or,  rather,  we  are  buying  it  on  the 
instalment  plan.  It  is  really  an  adorable 
little  place  with  a  very  flowery  garden,  sur- 
rounded by  arbors  covered  with  roses, 
wistaria,  and  jasmine  (I  think  I  should  say 
we  have  been  very  fortunate  in  our  dwell- 
ing-places since  we  emigrated),  and  passers- 
by  usually  stop  and  comment  favorably. 
Young  men  bring  their  girls  and  show  them 
the  sort  of  little  place  they'd  like  to  own, 
and  often  they  ring  the  door-bell  for  fur- 
ther inquiries.  Driven  to  bay,  I  have  put 
a  price  of  half  a  million  on  our  tiny  estate. 
When  I  mention  this,  the  investigators  usu- 

[156] 


WHERE  THE  TRADE  WIND  BLOWS 

ally  retreat  hastily,  looking  anxiously  over 
their  shoulders  to  see  if  my  keeper  is  any- 
where in  sight.  As  to  the  real-estate  men, 
they  are  more  in  number  than  the  sands 
of  the  sea,  and  the  competition  is  razor- 
edged.  If  you  have  the  dimmest  idea  of 
ever  buying  a  lot  or  house,  or  if  you  are 
comfortably  without  principle,  you  won't 
need  to  keep  a  motor  at  all.  The  real- 
estate  men  will  see  that  you  get  lots  of  fresh 
air,  and  they  are  most  obliging  about  let- 
ting you  do  your  marketing  on  the  way 
home.  We  have  an  especial  friend  in  the 
business.  He  never  loses  hope,  or  his 
temper.  It  was  he  that  originally  found 
us  "The  Sabine  Farm."  He  let  us  live 
there  in  peace  till  we  were  rested,  for  which 
we  are  eternally  grateful,  and  then  he 
began  to  throw  out  unsettling  remarks. 
The  boys  ought  to  have  a  place  to  call 
[IS7] 


THE  SMILING  HILL-TOP 

home  where  they  could  grow  up  with  asso- 
ciations. Wasn't  it  foolish  to  pay  rent 
when  we  might  be  applying  that  money 
toward  the  purchase  of  a  house  ?  Of  course 
it  told  on  us  in  time  and  we  began  to  look 
about.     "The  Sabine  Farm "  would  not  do, 

as  it  was  too  far  from  J 's  business,  and 

the  lotus-flower  existence  of  our  first  two 
years  was  ours  no  longer.  Every  lot  we 
looked  at  had  irresistible  attractions,  and 
insurmountable  objections.  At  last,  how- 
ever, we  settled  on  a  piece  of  land  looking 
toward  the  mountains,  with  orange  trees 
on  either  hand,  paid  a  part  of  the  price, 
and  supposed  it  was  ours  for  better  or 
worse.  Just  then  the  war  darkened  and 
we  felt  panicky,  but  heaven  helped  us,  for 
there  was  a  flaw  in  the  title,  and  our  money 
came  trotting  back  to  us,  wagging  its  tail. 
It  was  after  this  that  we  stumbled  on  the 
[IS8] 


WHERE  THE  TRADE  WIND  BLOWS 

arbored  bungalow,  and  bought  it  in  fifteen 

minutes.     I  asked  Mr.  W if  he  liked 

bass  fishing,  and  whether  he'd  ever  found 
one  gamier  to  land  than  our  family.  He 
will  probably  let  us  live  quietly  for  a  little 
while,  and  then  he  will  undoubtedly  tell 
us  that  this  place  is  too  small  for  us.  I 
know  him ! 

In  case  of  death  or  bankruptcy  the  situa- 
tion is  much  more  intense.  Every  mouse 
hole  has  its  alert  whiskered  watcher,  and 
after  a  delay  of  a  few  days  for  decency, 
such  pressure  is  brought  to  bear  that  sur- 
viving relatives  rarely  have  the  courage  to 
stand  pat.  Probably  a  change  of  sur- 
roundings is  good  for  them. 

If  people  can't  be  induced  to  sell,  often 

they  will  rent.     There  is  an  eccentric  old 

woman  in  town  who  owns  a  most  lovely 

lot,  beautifully  planted,  that  is  the  hope 

[IS9] 


THE  SMILING  HILI^TOP 

and  snare  of  every  real-estate  man,  but, 
though  poor,  she  will  not  part  with  it. 
She  has  a  house,  however,  that  she  rents 
in  the  season.  One  day  some  Eastern 
people  were  looking  at  it,  and  timidly  said 
that  one  bath-room  seemed  rather  scant 
for  so  large  a  house. 

"Oh,  do  you  think  so  ?"  said  Mrs.  Rid- 
dle. *'It  is  enough  for  us.  Mr.  Riddle 
and  I  aren't  what  you'd  call  bathers.  In 
fact,  Mr.  Riddle  doesn't  bathe  at  all;  I 
sponge!" 

Real  estate  isn't  the  only  interest  of  the 
West.  We  all  read  the  advertising  page 
of  the  local  paper  just  as  eagerly  as  we  do 
the  foreign  news.  If  I  feel  at  all  lonely 
or  bored  I  generally  advertise  for  some- 
thing. Once  I  wanted  a  high-school  boy 
to  drive  the  motor  three  afternoons  a  week. 
The  paper  was  still  moist  from  the  press 
[i6o] 


WHERE  THE  TRADE  WIND  BLOWS 

when  my  applicants  began  to  telephone. 
I  took  their  names  and  gave  them  appoint- 
ments at  ten-minute  intervals  all  the  fol- 
lowing morning,  only  plugging  the  tele- 
phone when  J and  I  felt  we  must  have 

some  sleep.  In  the  morning,  forgetting  the 
little  wad  of  paper  we  had  placed  in  the 
bell,  I  took  down  the  receiver  to  call  the 
market,  when  a  tired  voice  started  as  if  I 
had  pressed  a  button: 

"I  saw  your  'ad'  in  the  paper  last  night, 
etc."  When  they  arrived  they  ranged  in 
age  from  sixteen  to  sixty.  The  latter  was 
a  retired  clergyman,  the  Rev.  Mr.  Bain, 
who  said  he  drove  for  his  wife,  but  (here 
he  fitted  his  finger-tips  together,  and 
worked  them  back  and  forth  in  a  manner 
that  was  a  blend  of  jauntiness  and  cor- 
diality) he  thought  he  could  fit  us  both 
in! 

[  i6i  ] 


THE  SMILING  HILI^TOP 

I  blush  to  state  that  I  selected  a  younger 
chauffeur !  Emboldened  by  the  success  of 
my  first  advertising  venture,  I  decided  to 
try  again.  This  time  I  wished  to  sell  our 
superfluous  old  furniture.  The  war  has 
made  me  dislike  anything  about  the  place 
that  isn't  really  in  use.  Having  lived 
some  years  in  Pennsylvania,  and  having 
amassed  quite  a  collection  of  antique  ma- 
hogany furniture,  I  felt  justified  in  thin- 
ning out  a  few  tables  and  odd  pieces  that 
our  desirable  bungalow  is  too  small  to 
hold.  The  results  weren't  as  pronounced 
as  before,  but  they  quite  repaid  me.  I 
sold  my  best  table  to  a  general,  which  gave 
me  a  lot  of  confidence,  but  my  greatest 
triumph  was  a  hat-rack.  It  was  a  barren, 
gaunt-looking  affair,  like  a  leafless  tree  in 
winter,  but  it  was  mahogany,  and  it  was 
old.     Two  ladies  who  were  excitedly  buy- 

[162] 


WHERE  THE  TRADE  WIND  BLOWS 

ing  tables  spied  it,  and  exclaimed  in  rap- 
ture.    I  rose  to  the  occasion: 

"That  is  the  most  unusual  piece  I  have/* 
I  unblushingly  gushed.  "It  is  solid  ma- 
hogany and  very  old.  I  never  saw  another 
like  it.  Yes,  I  would  sell  it  for  twenty-five 
dollars." 

They  both  wanted  it — I  was  almost 
afraid  it  might  make  feeling  between  them, 
till  I  soothed  the  loser  by  selling  her  an  old 
brass  tea-kettle  that  I  had  picked  up  in  a 
curiosity  shop  in  Oxford  years  ago.  It 
was  so  old  that  it  had  a  hole  in  it,  which 
seemed  to  clinch  the  matter.  I  sent  for 
the  packer  the  moment  they  were  out  of 
the  house,  and  had  the  things  boxed  and 
away  before  they  could  change  their  minds. 

When  I  showed  J the  money,  he  said 

I  was  wasting  my  time  writing,  that  he 
was  sure  I  had  a  larger  destiny. 

[  163  ] 


THE  SMILING  HILL-TOP 

Speaking  of  having  furniture  boxed  car- 
ries me  back  to  the  time  when  we  lived  in 
Pennsylvania  and  I  bought  many  things 
of  a  pleasant  old  rascal  who  just  managed 
to  keep  out  of  jail.  One  time  he  showed 
me  a  lovely  old  table  of  that  ruddy  glow- 
ing mahogany  that  adds  so  much  to  a  room. 
I  said  I  would  take  it,  but  told  him  not  to 
send   it  home  till   afternoon.     I  wanted 

time  to  break  it  to  J after  a  good 

luncheon.     J was  very  amiable  and 

approving,  and  urged  me  to  have  it  sent 
up,  so  I  went  down  to  the  shop  to  see 
about  it.  To  my  dismay  I  found  it  neatly 
crated  and  just  being  loaded  into  a  wagon. 
I  called  frantically  to  my  rascally  friend, 
who  tried  to  slip  out  of  the  back  door  un- 
observed, but  in  vain.  I  fixed  him  with 
an  accusing  eye. 

*'What  are  you  doing  with  my  table?" 
I  demanded. 

[164] 


WHERE  THE  TRADE  WIND  BLOWS 

"Did  you  really  want  it?''  he  queried. 

"Of  course  I  want  it.  Didn't  I  say  Vd 
take  it  ?"     I  was  annoyed. 

"Oh,  well,"  to  his  men,  "take  it  off, 
boys."  "You  see,"  turning  to  me,  "  a  man 
from  Seattle  was  in  after  you  left,  and  he 
said  he'd  take  that  round  table  over  there 
if  I'd  sell  him  this  one  too.  I  showed  him 
another  one  every  bit  as  good  as  this,  but 
he  wouldn't  look  at  it;  still,  I  guess  I'll 
box  it  up  in  that  crate  with  his  round  one, 
and  when  it  gets  to  Seattle  I  reckon  he 
won't  want  to  send  it  way  back.  It's  a 
long  way  to  Seattle !" 

"That's  your  business,  not  mine,"  I  re- 
marked coldly,  though  I  felt  an  unholy 
desire  to  laugh.  "Just  send  mine  home 
before  any  one  else  tempts  you." 

I  still  sleep  in  a  Hepplewhite  four-poster 
that  he  wheedled  out  of  an  old  Pennsyl- 
vania Dutch  woman  for  a  mere  song.  The 
[i6s] 


THE  SMILING  HILL-TOP 

posts  at  the  head  were  sawed  ofF  so  that  the 
bed  could  stand  in  a  room  with  a  sloping 
ceiling,  but,  fortunately,  the  thrifty  owner 
had  saved  the  pieces  instead  of  using  them 
for  firewood,  so  I  have  had  them  neatly 
stuck  on  again. 

I  think  perhaps  a  subconscious  recollec- 
tion of  his  methods  was  what  made  me  so 
successful  with  the  hat-rack. 

War  work  has  brought  out  much  latent 
ability  of  this  kind.  Lilies  of  the  field, 
who  had  never  needed  to  toil  or  spin  for 
themselves,  were  glad  to  do  so  for  the  Red 
Cross.  In  Pasadena  we  had  a  small  Span- 
ish street  (inside  a  building),  with  tiny 
shops  on  either  side,  where  you  could  buy 
anything  from  an  oil  painting  to  a  summer 
hat.  In  front  was  a  gay  little  plaza  with 
vines  and  a  fountain,  where  lunch  and  tea 
were  served  by  the  prettiest  girls  in  town 
[i66] 


WHERE  THE  TRADE  WIND  BLOWS 

in  bewitching  frilled  caps  with  long  black 
streamers  and  sheer  lawn  aprons  over  blue 
and  green  frocks.  The  Tired  Business 
Men  declined  to  lunch  anywhere  else,  and 
there  was  a  moment  when  we  feared  it 
might  have  to  be  given  up,  as  there  was 
some  feeling  in  town  on  account  of  the 
vacant  stools  at  their  old-time  counters ! 
It  all  went  to  prove  that  you  don't  need 
to  be  brought  up  in  "trade"  to  be  a  great 
success  at  it. 

No  one  has  stuck  to  his  or  her  usual  role 
in  the  past  two  years,  which  has  added  a 
piquancy  to  life.  We  have  all  wanted  to 
do  our  bit  and  the  "Why  not .?"  that  I  feel 
so  strongly  in  CaHfornia  has  spread  over 
the  whole  country.  In  order  to  make  the 
most  efficient  use  of  the  newly  discovered 
talents  on  every  side,  the  Red  Cross  sent 
out  cards  with  blanks  to  be  filled  by  all 

[167] 


THE  SMILING  HILI^TOP 

those  ready  to  work,  asking  what  they  felt 
themselves  fitted  to  do,  when  could  they 
work,  and  how  long.  One  card  read  "will- 
ing but  nervous,  might  possibly  pray." 

Our  Red  Cross  Street  brought  in  many 
people  full  of  enthusiasm  and  energy,  who 
might  never  have  rolled  a  bandage.  I 
shan't  soon  forget  the  strenuous  days  of 

its^opening.     J and  another  diplomat, 

who  also  has  a  talent  for  pouring  oil  on 
troubled  waters,  were  in  charge  of  the 
financial  part  of  the  enterprise,  and  theirs 
was  the  task  of  seeing  that  none  of  the 
chapter  funds  were  used,  so  that  no  possi- 
ble criticism  could  arise.  A  pretty  young 
actress  offered  to  give  a  premiere  of  a 
comedy  which  she  was  about  to  take  on 
the  road,  for  the  benefit  of  the  street,  and 
every  one  was  delighted  until  they  saw  a 
rehearsal.  It  was  one  of  those  estranged- 
[  i68  ] 


WHERE  THE  TRADE  WIND  BLOWS 

husband-one-cocktail-too-many  farces,  full 

of  innuendo  and  profanity.    J and  his 

partner  were  much  upset,  but  it  was  too 
late  to  withdraw.  The  company,  in  defer- 
ence to  the  Red  Cross,  agreed  to  leave  out 
everything  but  the  plain  damns.  Even 
then  it  wasn't  what  they  would  have 
chosen,  and  two  very  depressed  ** angels" 
met  in  the  hall  of  the  High  School  Audi- 
torium, on  the  night  of  the  performance. 
Nothing  had  gone  right.  The  tickets  were 
late  coming  from  the  printer,  the  advertis- 
ing man  had  had  tonsilitis,  every  one  was 
"fed  up"  with  Red  Cross  entertainments, 
and  it  was  pouring  in  torrents.  There  was 
a  sprinkling  of  gallant  souls  on  the  first 
floor  of  the  big  hall,  and  that  was  all.  The 
fact  that  they  wouldn't  make  much  money 
wasn't  what  was  agitating  the  "angels" 
nearly  as  much  as  the  wrath  of  the  pink- 

[169] 


THE  SMILING  HILI^TOP 

and-white  lady  about  to  appear.    Then 
came  the  inspiration.     I  wish  I  could  say 

it  was  J 's  idea,  but  it  was  Mr.  M 's. 

A  night  school  of  several  hundred  is  in  ses- 
sion in  that  building  every  evening,  and  a 
cordial  invitation  to  see  a  play  free  brought 
the  whole  four  hundred  in  a  body  to  fill 
the  auditorium,  if  not  completely,  at  least 
creditably.  They  loved  it  and  were  loud 
in  their  applause.  The  "damns"  didn't 
bother  them  a  bit.  They  encored  the 
lady,  which,  combined  with  a  mammoth 
bouquet,  provided  by  the  "management," 
gave  the  whole  thing  quite  a  triumphant 
air.  When  we  all  went  behind  the  scenes 
after  the  play,  the  atmosphere  was  really 
balmy.  The  lady  expressed  herself  as 
greatly  pleased  and  gratified  by  so  large 
and  enthusiastic  an  audience.  ("On  such 
a  bad  night,  too!")  I  retired  behind  a 
[  170  ] 


WHERE  THE  TRADE  WIND  BLOWS 

bit  of  scenery  and  pinched  myself  till  I  felt 
less  hilarious.  One  thing  I  know,  and  that 
is  that  if  J should  ever  change  his  busi- 
ness it  won't  be  to  go  into  any  theatrical 
enterprise.  I  don't  think  even  the  "mov- 
ies" could  lure  him,  and  yet  she  was  a 
very  pretty  actress ! 

It  is  a  far  cry  from  blonde  stars  to  fu- 
nerals, but  J feels  no  change  of  subject, 

however  abrupt,  is  out  of  place  when  talk- 
ing of  his  **  first  night,"  so  I  would  like  to 
say  a  few  words  about  that  branch  of  Cali- 
fornia business.  In  the  first  place,  no  one 
ever  dies  out  here  until  they  are  over 
eighty,  unless  they  are  run  over  or  meet 

with  some  other  accident.     J says  that 

old  ladies  in  the  seventies,  driving  electrics, 
are  the  worst  menace  to  life  that  we  have. 
When  our  four-score  years  and  ten  have 
been  lived — probably  a  few  extra  for  good 

[  171  ] 


THE  SMILING  HILL-TOP 

measure — an  end  must  come,  but  a  Cali- 
fornia funeral  is  so  different !  A  Los  Ange- 
les paper  advertises  "Perfect  Funerals  at 
Trust  Prices."  We  often  meet  them  bowl- 
ing gayly  along  the  boulevards,  the  motor 
hearse  maintaining  a  lively  pace,  which  the 
mourners    are   expected    to   follow.     The 

nearest  J ever  came  to  an  accident 

was  suddenly  meeting  one  on  the  wrong 
side  of  the  road,  and  the  funeral  chauffeur's 
language  was  not  any  more  scriptural  than 

J 's.     As  we  were  nowhere  near  eighty, 

we  felt  we  had  a  lot  of  life  still  coming  to 
us  and  gave  grateful  thanks  for  our  escape. 
Life  is  a  good  thing.  I  maintain  it  in 
the  face  of  pessimists,  but  it  is  a  particu- 
larly good  thing  in  California,  with  its  sun- 
shine and  its  possibilities.  I  shan't  go  on 
because  I  believe  I  have  said  something  of 
this  same  sort  before.  It  makes  you  ready 
[172] 


WHERE  THE  TRADE  WIND  BLOWS 

for  the  next  thing,  whatever  that  may  be, 
and  you  feel  pretty  sure  that  it  will  be  in- 
teresting. It's  a  kind  of  perpetual  "night 
before  Christmas  "  feeling.  Some  time  ago 
when  I  picked  up  my  evening  paper  my 
eye  fell  on  this  advertisement: 

"Wanted:  A  third  partner  in  a  well- 
established  trading  business  in  the  South 
Seas.  Schooner  now  fitting  out  in  San 
Francisco  to  visit  the  Islands  for  cargo  of 
copra,  pearls,  sandalwood,  spices,  etc. 
Woman  of  forty  or  over  would  be  consid- 
ered for  clerical  side  of  enterprise,  with 
headquarters  on  one  of  the  islands.  This 
is  a  strictly  business  proposition — no  one 
with  sentiment  need  apply." 

When  I  read  it  first  I  couldn't  believe  it. 

I    rubbed    my   eyes    and    read   it    again. 

There  it  was  next  to  the  Belgian  hares,  the 

bargains  in  orange  groves  and  the  rebuilt 

[173] 


THE  SMILING  HILI^TOP 

automobiles.  It  was  fairly  reeking  with 
romance.  I  felt  like  finding  an  under- 
study for  my  job  at  home,  boarding  the 
schooner  and  sailing  blithely  out  of  the 
Golden  Gate.  The  South  Seas  is  the  next 
stop  beyond  Southern  California.  I  think 
I  could  keep  their  old  books,  though  I 
never  took  any  prizes  in  arithmetic  at 
school.  How  amusing  it  would  be  to  enter 
in  my  ledger  instead  of  "two  dozen  eggs" 
and  "three  pounds  of  butter,"  "two  dozen 
pearls  at  so  much  a  dozen  "  (or  would  they 
be  entered  by  ounces  ?)  and  "fifty  pounds 
of  sandalwood,"  or  should  I  reckon  that 
by  cords  ?  I  could  find  out  later.  I  would 
wear  my  large  tortoise-shell  spectacles 
(possibly  blinders  in  addition),  and  I 
should  attend  strictly  to  business  for 
a  while,  but  when  a  full  moon  rose  over  a 
South  Sea  lagoon,  and  the  palm  trees 
[174] 


WHERE  THE  TRADE  WIND  BLOWS 

rustled  and  the  phosphorescence  broke  in 
silver  on  the  bow  of  the  pearl  schooner, 
where  she  rode  at  anchor  in  our  little  bay, 
could  I  keep  my  contract  and  avoid  senti- 
ment ?  How  ridiculous  to  suppose  that 
stipulating  that  the  lady  should  be 
forty  or  over  would  make  any  difference ! 
What  is  forty  ?  If  they  had  said  that  she 
must  be  a  cross-eyed  spinster  with  a  hare- 
lip, it  would  have  been  more  to  the  point. 
I'm  not  a  spinster  or  cross-eyed,  but  why 
go  on  ?  I  don't  intend  to  commit  myself 
about  the  age  limit.  I  don't  have  to,  be- 
cause I  am  not  going  to  apply  for  the  posi- 
tion, after  all.  I  have  a  South  Sea  tem- 
perament but  as  it  is  securely  yoked  to  a 
New  England  upbringing,  the  trade  wind 
will  only  blow  the  sails  of  my  imagination 
to  that  sandalwood  port. 

[  175  ] 


WE  saw  a  most  amusing  farce  some 
time  ago  which  contained  much  in- 
teresting information  concerning  the  worth 
of  advertising.  I  forget  the  fabulous  figure 
at  which  "The  Gold  Dust  Twins"  trade- 
mark is  valued,  but  I  know  that  it  easily 
puts  them  into  Charley  ChapHn's  class.  I 
am  sure  that  "Sunkist"   cannot  be  far 

[176] 


SUNKIST 


behind  the  "Twins,"  for  no  single  word 
could  possibly  suggest  a  more  luscious,  de- 
lectable, and  desirable  fruit  than  that.  It 
would  even  take  the  curse  ofF  being  a 
lemon  to  be  a  "  Sunkist "  lemon.  It  con- 
tains no  hint  of  the  perilous  early  life  of  an 
orange.  Truly  that  life  is  more  chancey 
than  an  aviator's.  They  say  that  in  the 
good  old  days  there  were  no  frosts,  but  that 
irrigation  is  gradually  changing  the  climate 
of  Southern  California.  We  would  not 
dare  to  express  an  opinion  on  this  much 
discussed  point,  as  we  have  never  gone  to 
any  new  place  where  the  climate  has  been 
able  to  stand  the  shock.  It  is  always  an 
unusual  season.  I  do  know,  however,  that 
bringing  up  a  crop  of  oranges  is  as  anxious 
an  undertaking  as  "raising"  a  family. 
Little  black  smudge  pots  stand  in  rows  in 
the  groves,  ready  to  be  lighted  at  the  first 


THE  SMILING  HILL-TOP 

hint  of  frost.  The  admonition  of  the 
hymn  applies  to  fruit  growers  as  well  as 
to  foolish  virgins: 

"See  that  yourllamps  are  burning. 
Your  vessels  filled  with  oil." 

On  sharp  mornings  the  valleys  are  full 
of  a  gray  haze  still  lingering  protectingly 
over  the  ranches.  Then  there  are  blights. 
I  don't  pretend  to  know  all  the  ills  the 
orange  is  heir  to.  Sometimes  it  grows  too 
fat  and  juicy  and  cracks  its  skin,  and 
sometimes  it  is  attacked  by  scale.  Every 
tree  has  to  be  swathed  in  a  voluminous 
sheet  and  fumigated  once  a  year  at  great 
expense.  After  living  out  here  some  time, 
I  began  to  understand  why  even  in  the 
heart  of  the  orange  country  we  sometimes 
pay  fifty  cents  a  dozen  for  the  large  fruit. 
There  is  a  way,  however,  of  getting  around 

[1781 


SUNKIST 


the  high  cost  of  living  in  this  particular — 
you  can  go  to  a  packing  house  and  buy  for 
thirty-five  cents  an  entire  box  of  what  are 
called  culls — oranges  too  large  or  too  small 
for  shipping,  or  with  some  slight  imperfec- 
tion that  would  not  stand  transportation, 
but  are  as  good  for  most  purposes  as  the 
"Sunkist"  themselves. 

In  California,  Orange  Day  is  next  in  im- 
portance to  Washington's  Birthday  and 
the  Fourth  of  July.  I  shall  never  forget 
our  first  experience  of  its  charms.  We 
were  motoring,  taking  a  last  jaunt  in  an 
old  machine  which  we  had  just  sold  for 
more  than  we  ever  had  expected  to  get 
for  it.  It  was  a  reckless  thing  to  do,  for 
we  had  no  spare  tire  and  it  is  very  like 
speculating  in  oil  stocks  to  start  for  a  run 
of  any  length  under  those  circumstances. 
It  worked  out  about  as  it  would  have  done 
[  179  ] 


THE  SMILING  HILI^TOP 

if  we  had  been  trifling  with  the  stock  mar- 
ket. A  rear  tire  blew  out,  and  we  were 
put  under  the  disagreeable  necessity  of  giv- 
ing our  purchaser  more  nearly  his  money's 
worth.  This  was  a  poor  start  for  a  holi- 
day, but  being  near  a  delightful  inn,  we 
crept  slowly  to  town  on  our  rim  and  found 
a  fete  awaiting  us.  We  also  found  friends 
from  the  East  who  asked  us  all  to  lunch, 
thereby,  as  one  member  of  the  party  put 
it  in  Pollyanna's  true  spirit,  much  decreas- 
ing the  price  of  the  new  tire.  The  inn  is 
built  in  Spanish  style  and  we  lunched  in  a 
courtyard  full  of  gaudy  parrots,  singing 
birds  in  wicker  cages  and  singing  seiioritas 
as  gay  as  the  parrots,  on  balconies  above 
us.  The  entire  menu  was  orange,  or  at 
least  colored  orange.  It  was  really  charm- 
ing, and  our  spirits  rose  to  almost  a  cham- 
pagne pitch,  though  orange  juice — diluted 
[i8o] 


SUNKIST 


at  that — was  the  only  beverage  served.  (I 
believe  that  there  is  a  Raisin  Day,  also, 
but  on  account  of  its  horrid  association 
with  rice  and  bread  puddings  we  have  let 
that  slip  by  unnoticed.) 

Our  California  color  scheme  is  the  very 
latest  thing  in  decorative  art.  There  is 
nothing  shrinking  about  us,  for  we  come 
boldly  forth  in  orange  and  yellows  in  true 
cigar  -  ribbon  style  —  even  our  motor  li- 
censes of  last  year  had  poppies  on  them. 
Speaking  of  poppies,  I  heard  the  other  day 
of  a  lady  who  voiced  her  opinion  in  all 
seriousness  in  the  paper,  that  Mr.  Hoover 
should  have  California  poppy  seeds  sent 
to  him  for  distribution  among  the  Belgians 
to  sow  over  the  ruins  of  their  country.  Of 
course  there  is  something  in  the  power  of 
suggestion,  and  I  suppose  it  would  brighten 
up  the  landscape.  Joedy  is  strong  on  the 
[  i8i  ] 


THE  SMILING  HILL-TOP 

color  idea.  We  had  a  neighbor  who  had 
a  terrible  attack  of  jaundice,  which  turned 
her  the  color  of  a  daffodil.  I  was  saying 
what  a  pity  it  was,  then  Joedy  observed: 
"Well,  Muvs,  I  think  she  makes  a  nice 
bright  spot  of  color ! " 

There  is  a  road  leading  toward  the  San 
Fernando  Valley,  with  fruit  stalls  on  both 
sides,  very  gay"  with  oranges,  grape-fruit, 
and  lemons.  One  particularly  alluring 
stand  is  presided  over  by  a  colored  mammy 
in  bandana  shades,  turban  and  all. 

All  this  profusion  makes  one  feel  that 
it  is  no  trick  to  get  a  living  out  of  this  very 
impulsive  soil,  but  before  buying  a  plot  of 
one*s  own,  it  is  wise  to  see  the  seasons 
through.  California  is  a  very  unexpected 
country.  You  see  a  snug  Httle  ranch,  good 
soil,  near  a  railroad,  just  what  you  were 
looking  for,  but  three  months  of  the  year 

[182] 


SUNKIST 


it  may  be  under  water.  After  the  spring 
rains  we  once  went  for  a  change  of  air  to 
one  of  the  beaches,  which  we  particularly 
disliked,  because  it  was  the  only  place 
that  we  could  get  to,  bridges  being  out  in 
all  directions.  For  the  same  reason  it  was 
so  packed  with  other  visitors,  maybe  as 
unwilling  as  we,  that  we  had  a  choice  of 
sleeping  in  the  park  or  taking  a  small 
apartment  belonging  to  a  Papa  and  Mama 
Dane.  It  was  full  of  green  plush  and  calla 
lilies,  but  we  chose  it  in  preference  to  the 
green  grass  and  calla  Hlies  of  the  park. 
We  passed  an  uneasy  and  foggy  week 
there.     I  slept  in  a  bed  which  disappeared 

into  a  bureau  and  J on  a  lounge  that 

curled  up  like  a  jelly  roll  by  day.  Mama 
Dane  gave  us  breakfast  in  the  family  sit- 
ting-room where  a  placard  hung,  saying, 
"God  hears  all  that  you  say."    J and 

[183] 


THE  SMILING  HILL-TOP 

I  took  no  chances,  and  ate  in  silence. 
Anyway,  the  eggs  were  fresh.  We  explored 
the  country  as  well  as  we  could  in  the  fog, 
and  found  quite  a  large  part  of  it  well 
under  water.  On  one  ranch  we  met  a  mo- 
rose gentleman  in  hip  boots,  wading  about 
his  property,  which  looked  like  a  pretty 
lake  with  an  R.  F.  D.  box  sticking  up  here 
and  there  like  a  float  on  a  fishing  line,  while 
a  gay  party  of  boys  and  girls  were  rowing 
through  an  avenue  of  pepper  trees  in  an 
old  boat.     The  gentleman  in  the  hip  boots 

had  bought  his  place  in  summer!    J 

and  I  decided  then  and  there  that  if  we 
ever  bought  any  property  in  Cahfornia,  it 
would  be  in  the  midst  of  the  spring  rains, 
but  we  know  now  that  even  that  wouldn't 
be  safe — another  element  has  to  be  reck- 
oned with  besides  water — fire. 
Of  course  Rain  in  California  is  spelled 

[1841 


SUNKIST 


with  a  capital  R.  Noah  spelled  it  that 
way,  but  we  didn't  before  we  came  West. 
It  swells  the  streams,  which  in  summer  are 
nothing  but  trickles,  to  rushing  torrents 
in  no  time.  Bridges  snap  Hke  twigs,  dams 
burst,  telegraph  lines  collapse;  rivers  even 
change  their  courses  entirely,  if  they  feel 
like  it,  so  that  it  would  really  be  a  good 
idea  to  build  extra  bridges  wherever  it 
seemed  that  a  temperamental  river  might 
decide  to  go.  I  have  heard  of  a  farmer 
who  wrote  to  one  of  the  railroads,  saying, 
"Will  you  please  come  and  take  your 
bridge  away  from  my  bean-field  I  I  want 
to  begin  ploughing." 

This  adds  natural  hazards  to  the  real- 
estate  game.  There  are  others — Fire,  as 
I  said  a  moment  ago.  I  have  a  very  pro- 
found respect  for  the  elements  since  we 
have  come  West  to  live.  A  forest  fire  is 
[  i8S  ] 


THE  SMILING  HILI^TOP 

even  more  terrifying  than  a  flood,  and  in 
spite  of  the  eagle  eyes  of  the  foresters 
many  are  the  lovely  green  slopes  burned 
over  each  year.  I  have  seen  a  brush  fire 
marching  over  a  hill  across  the  canyon 
from  us,  like  an  army  with  banners — flying 
our  colors  of  orange  and  yellow — driving 
terrified  rabbits  and  snakes  ahead  of  it, 
and  fought  with  the  fervor  of  Crusaders 
by  the  property  owners  in  its  path. 

The  very  impulsiveness  of  the  climate 
seems  to  give  the  most  wonderful  results 
in  the  way  of  vegetables  and  fruit.  Around 
Pasadena  there  are  acres  and  acres  of  truck 
gardens,  developed  with  Japanese  eflR- 
ciency.  I  love  al  fresco  marketing.  If  I 
can  find  time  once  a  week  to  motor  up  the 
valley  and  fill  the  machine  with  beautiful, 
crisp,  fresh  green  things  of  all  kinds,  it 
makes  housekeeping  a  pleasure.  The  lit- 
[i86] 


SUNKIST 


tie  Japanese  women  are  so  smiling  and 
pleasant,  with  their  "Good-by,  come  gen," 
the  melons  are  so  luscious,  the  eternal 
strawberry  so  ripe  and  red,  the  orange 
blossom  honey  so  delectable,  and  every- 
thing is  so  cheap  compared  to  what  we 
had  been  used  to  in  the  East!  I  think 
that  in  San  Diego  one  can  live  better  on  a 
small  income  than  anywhere  in  the  coun- 
try. Once  some  intimate  friends  of  ours 
gave  us  a  dinner  there  in  January  that 
could  not  have  been  surpassed  in  New 
York.  The  menu  included  all  the  delica- 
cies in  season  and  out  of  season,  fresh 
mushrooms,  alligator  pears  and  pheasants. 
J and  I  looked  at  one  another  in  min- 
gled enjoyment  and  dismay  that  so  much 
was  being  done  for  us.  Finally  our  host 
could  not  help  telling  us  how  much  for 
each  person  this  wonderful  meal  was  cost- 
L187] 


THE  SMILING  HILL-TOP 

ing,  including  some  very  fetching  drinks 
called  "pink  skirts."  You  wouldn't  be- 
lieve me  if  I  told  how  little ! 

One  more  delicacy  of  which  we  make 
rather  a  specialty:  I  should  call  it  a  climate 
sandwich.  If  you  live  in  the  invigorating 
air  of  the  foothills,  to  motor  to  the  sea,  a 
run  of  some  thirty  miles  from  where  we 
live  in  winter,  spend  several  hours  on  the 
sand,  and  before  dark  turn  "Home  to  Our 
Mountains'*  gives  a  mountain  air  sand- 
wich with  sea-breeze  filling — a  singularly 
refreshing  and  satisfying  dainty. 

Perhaps  my  enthusiasm  for  California 
sounds  a  little  like  cupboard  love.  There 
is  a  certain  type  of  magazine  which  pub- 
lishes the  most  alluring  pictures  of  food, 
salads  and  desserts,  even  a  table  with  the 
implements  laid  out  ready  for  canning 
peaches,  that  holds  a  fatal  fascination  for 
[188] 


SUNKIST 


me.     I  have  even  noticed  J looking  at 

one  with  interest.  When  my  father  comes 
out  to  visit  us  every  spring,  the  truck  gar- 
dens, the  packing  houses,  and  the  cost  of 
Hving  here,  I  think,  affect  him  in  much  the 
same  way  that  those  magazines  do  me,  and 
I  wonder  if  every  one,  except  a  dyspeptic, 
doesn't  secretly  like  to  hear  and  see  these 
very  things !  Could  it  be  the  reason  peo- 
ple used  to  paint  so  much  still  life  ? — bas- 
kets of  fruit,  a  hunter's  game-bag,  a 
divided  melon,  etc.  I  frankly  own  that 
they  would  thrill  me  more  if  I  knew  their 
market  price,  so  that  I  might  be  imagining 
what  delightful  meals  I  could  offer  my 
family  without  straining  the  household 
purse,  which  is  my  excuse  for  the  intimate 
details  concerning  food  and  prices  which 
I  have  given. 

Surely  human  beings  ought  to  respond 
[189] 


THE  SMILING  HILL-TOP 

as  the  fruits  do  to  this  climate,  in  spirit  as 
well  as  in  body,  and  become  a  very  mellow, 
amiable,  sweet-tempered  lot  of  people,  and 
I  think  they  do.  Even  the  "culls"  are 
almost  as  good  as  the  rest,  though  they 
won't  bear  transportation.  It  is  the  land 
of  the  second  chance,  of  dreams  come  true, 
of  freshness  and  opportunity,  of  the  wide- 
ness  of  out-of-doors — **Sunkist!" 

The  End 


[190] 


BERKELEY 

THIS  BOOK  IS  DUE  ON  THE  LAST  DATE 

STAMPED  BELOW 

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to  $1.00  per  volume  after  the  sixth  day.      Books  not  in 
demand  may  be  renew^ed  if  application   is   made  before 
expiration  of  loan  period. 

RnC'D  LD 

iV-a  oljuax-^ 

MAY  3 1 19W 

MA.  16  1920 

JUL  27  vm 

'''  ^   t929 

1 
i 

3lFeb'63* 

FEB    71963 

50m-7,'16 

UNIVERSITY  OF  CALIFORNIA  LIBRARY 


iM^m 


